"I perform, discreetly, lunatic chores"
place and time, mostly place
5: sacred
4: <3
3: like
2: bleh
1: boo
Too branded, lifeless and gimmicky, but watching this right after I Robot made me wonder if perhaps we are too hard on the current state of blockbusters. I found that comforting.
Just when you can't handle another scene, this movie hits you with sweetness. Just when you start getting comfortable, it turns unwatchable. And just when you think it's "cool", it gets too disturbed. All while following the beats of a teenage TV drama... In the long line of hustler stories, this has gotta be the first absurdist melodrama. This movie is not what you think. It's unpredictable in unpredictable ways. It's gorgeous, cheeky, and fucking brutally upsetting.
But also, for long…
For a political drama, this really avoids the actual politics of the Chicago 7. It does not talk about imperialism, it does not talk about dead Vietnamese civilians, it does not talk about the American police force as an inherently authoritarian regime, it does not talk about prison abolition, and it avoids the word capitalism. This movie, in general, avoids radical critique of America. And that would be fine -- movies don't have to be about radicalism! -- except for…