A non-narrative documentary in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka. Ascension doesn’t quite reach those heights; what’s missing for me is the music, which is key for “vibes” films like these.
I appreciated the film’s look at China’s working class. For the most part, the goal that these people are trying to ascend towards—wealth—remains an invisible spectre that hangs over them. You don’t see the bosses that they’re trying to please by taking smiling lessons; you don’t see the VIPs that they’re training as bodyguards to protect; you don’t see who they’re constructing the sex dolls for.
I almost wish that the film that kept that limited perspective for the entire runtime, but we do see a fancy dinner with those who have ascended all the way to the top. But for them, there is a higher goal: they seem preoccupied with the Western influences of the table settings and glassware. Is the Chinese Dream really worth chasing if it just leads you into the same materialistic folly as the American Dream?
To best enjoy this musical about the six wives of King Henry VIII, it’s good to brush up on the history. The lyrics contain a lot of jokes and references that I wouldn’t have gotten had I not learned a bit about the real-life stories.1
The songs are catchy, though unexceptional. The best song for me is the one for Catherine Howard. Through several repetitions of the chorus, she comes to realize that men objectify her, and goes through an emotional journey from playful to tragic. The singer ends the song with a sob, a surely challenging feat for an actor.
Footnotes
by watching The Tudors TV show, which is not necessarily the most historically accurate, but close enough ↩
I was sucked in for most of this novel, which tells the story of a middle-aged man who meets two mysterious women in the wake of his wife’s death. Each of the three characters have painful secrets in their past, and I was fascinated by how they each tried to hide themselves from the others, while still trying to grow closer.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think that the final revelations were very satisfying. The plot introduces one too many extramarital affairs, in my opinion. Even though it is meant to mirror another affair, it just felt like it came out of nowhere. Also, I found the prose style (or the translation) to be a bit repetitive (“It was the most unusual winter…“)
I don’t want to criticize this book too harshly. It’s well-written and readable, and my wife really loved it and got a lot out of it.
The author’s main argument can be summed up as: “Work sucks sometimes, but you are not your job, so don’t take it personally.” Each chapter is a mini-profile of someone who has experienced the suckage of work, and how they have learned the lesson that they shouldn’t have felt so bad about it, and that they should focus on what really matters.
But the things that suck about work still suck, whether you take it personally or not. It’s easy in hindsight to make the case that you should detach from the job, but it’s not so easy when it’s happening to you. I found myself wishing for justice from the employers who caused the suckage, but I suppose that would be another type of book.
Reservation Dogs appeared recently on The Hollywood Reporter’s list of top TV shows of the 21st century, pretty high up there. Not that these rankings mean a whole lot, but this show deserves any critical praise it gets. Equal parts hilarious and touching, and ultimately hopeful without shying away from the injustices that Indigenous people have faced… just watch it.
The premise and setup of this thriller drew me in. A family is home-invaded by twisted doppelgängers, monstrous versions of themselves. Cool idea, but unfortunately, the extended middle section of the movie doesn’t do much with the idea. It’s mostly generic chases and fights, and their attackers could have been anyone. The action scenes are well done and I felt the tension, but ultimately I was disappointed because the concept isn’t fully developed. The only explanation comes in the form of a long villain monologue… I wish it had been integrated into the story instead.
My main takeaway from this book is to try to see social issues in terms of insecurity instead of inequality. It’s easy to blame inequality on greedy wealthy people, which amplifies the divisions between people, whereas insecurity is a function of the capitalist system, and affects everyone. The reason that greed is such a powerful force is because everyone is afraid is losing it all, no matter how much they have.
I’m not sure if the book really sticks to this idea, though. We get the historical background of the origins of capitalism, which is a story about barons and commoners, which brings us back around the division between haves and have-nots all over again.
While I appreciated the historical and especially the Canadian context in this book, it felt overall like preaching to the choir. (I’m already quite the socialist.) It’s also written in a somewhat academic style, which made it increasingly skimmable towards the end.
I think this movie is much funnier than I felt it was on the first viewing. Julianne Moore plays Gracie, a woman who committed statutory rape, was imprisoned for it, and then ended up in a long-term and seemingly happy marriage with the much younger man. Natalie Portman plays an actress who will play Gracie in a movie, and is embedding herself in Gracie and her family’s life for the sake of research.
The subject matter is so uncomfortable and awkward that I was probably too tense to laugh. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not supposed to be a comedy, and the characters go through some painful realizations. But the fact that I chuckled on more than one occasion is a credit to the strength of the dark humour. I look forward to rewatching this in the future.
This comedic documentary just wrapped up its third and final season. It’s worth catching up with it for its truly unique format: the entire thing is made from first-person footage of random things happening in New York City, with intentionally awkward narration by Wilson. Every episode ostensibly has an educational topic, e.g. “How To Clean Your Ears”, but it inevitably veers off on some unexpected tangent. It’s not a laugh-out-loud kind of comedy, at least not for me, but I was always charmed by his worldview. It’s also suspenseful in a way because we don’t know what type of odd real-life characters he’ll meet next.
Things that are spirals in Uzumaki (lit. “Spiral”): dust devils, tongues, snails, water draining from bathtub, smoke, people who have turned into snails, people in general, hair, a hurricane, growths from a skin condition, staircases, etc.
This horror manga series was not the most narratively satisfying, but works great as a creative exploration of the visual motif of a spiral. So much in nature takes the form of spirals, so there’s nothing inherently scary about the shape, but when it invades and twists human bodies, the result is effectively stomach-churning.
