Great read. I totally agree on Tar. I think the thing that fascinates me about the Julliard scene is that they're both right in their own ways, and their primary point of wrongdoing in that scene is their failure to acknowledge the larger complexity of the issue they're talking about. It's a great little slice of modern discourse: Shave it down to something that's easy to digest and pretend like that's the whole story.
Thanks for this list, it's given me some new stuff to check out. I think your review of Tar is one of the few positive ones I've seen, and I've been wanting to check it out, so this will push me to do so. And I had totally forgotten about Pleasure, so thanks for the reminder on that too.
As for Peele, as a huge horror fan, there is some part of me that wonders what I'm missing. His movies just leave me so....empty. The only one I really enjoyed at all was US, just because I thought the home invasion stuff was really scary (home invasion is my second favorite horror sub-genre), but upon second watch even that lost a lot of its power for me. I am so glad he is making movies, and I can really appreciate and respect what he does, I just wish, I don't know, maybe he was better at it? His movies always feel to me like they desperately need an editor, and there also always feels like there is far too much exposition, too much to explain. I think he's a great Idea Man, and a very technically competent director, but I leave his movies just kinda feeling like they're half-baked. I definitely seem to be in the minority on all of these things, though, so I'm probably wrong. But if I'm being really cynical, sometimes the praise heaped on him all the time feels a little disingenuous to me, and a little patronizing. He feels a little beyond criticism to me sometimes. I'm not accusing you of doing that at all, I'm just saying in general. Ultimately, I just wished I liked his movies more than I do.
Excited to watch After Yang. I liked his other movie Colombus so much that I took my van there, camped in the visitor center parking lot next to the library, and walked around for three days. I want to go back soon. They have a nice pamphlet that shows you all the shooting locations.
Great read. I totally agree on Tar. I think the thing that fascinates me about the Julliard scene is that they're both right in their own ways, and their primary point of wrongdoing in that scene is their failure to acknowledge the larger complexity of the issue they're talking about. It's a great little slice of modern discourse: Shave it down to something that's easy to digest and pretend like that's the whole story.
Thanks for this list, it's given me some new stuff to check out. I think your review of Tar is one of the few positive ones I've seen, and I've been wanting to check it out, so this will push me to do so. And I had totally forgotten about Pleasure, so thanks for the reminder on that too.
As for Peele, as a huge horror fan, there is some part of me that wonders what I'm missing. His movies just leave me so....empty. The only one I really enjoyed at all was US, just because I thought the home invasion stuff was really scary (home invasion is my second favorite horror sub-genre), but upon second watch even that lost a lot of its power for me. I am so glad he is making movies, and I can really appreciate and respect what he does, I just wish, I don't know, maybe he was better at it? His movies always feel to me like they desperately need an editor, and there also always feels like there is far too much exposition, too much to explain. I think he's a great Idea Man, and a very technically competent director, but I leave his movies just kinda feeling like they're half-baked. I definitely seem to be in the minority on all of these things, though, so I'm probably wrong. But if I'm being really cynical, sometimes the praise heaped on him all the time feels a little disingenuous to me, and a little patronizing. He feels a little beyond criticism to me sometimes. I'm not accusing you of doing that at all, I'm just saying in general. Ultimately, I just wished I liked his movies more than I do.
Excited to watch After Yang. I liked his other movie Colombus so much that I took my van there, camped in the visitor center parking lot next to the library, and walked around for three days. I want to go back soon. They have a nice pamphlet that shows you all the shooting locations.
This list made me so EXCITED about these movies, including movies I would have absolutely otherwise forgotten about. Thank you for your SERVICE!
definitely would put Tar and After Yang on mine!