Engagement Part Deux, Movie roundup, climate signs
Updates
First things first, this happened:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt_cUOmBNv4/
Me taking the keyword of 2019, ‘Engagement’ to its logical conclusion.
10/10 - would recommend.
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Curriculum thunders towards the closing stages of it’s fifth issue:
Catch up here.
The art on the above is by Bryan Coyle. Whilst out and about in the Welsh valleys last weekend I also took the time to read The 13th Stone by Lee Robson with art by Bryan.
“Taking a job in the small English village of Argleton, archaeologist Joy Lambton finds herself intrigued by the ancient stones that stand on the outskirts - particularly why the few sources she can find about them claim there are only eleven stones, when there are clearly twelve.
But when she learns of a thirteenth stone, Joy begins to uncover the dark and terrifying connection they have to the village…”
The book has a very quaint English-ness about it that plunges ever more towards the darkness as the story goes forward. Seek it out on ComiXology.
Consume
I’ve managed to get through a trio of films this month. First up was Steve McQueen’s Widows, a glorious heist movie with stellar performances from Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez. As well as being a straight up crime movie the narrative also engages with the notions of power (particularly patriarchal power), race, corruption and politics.
Not long into the film there’s a scene where Colin Farrell’s beaming politician extols the virtues of a scheme he’s put into place to help local business owners in his ward. After the speech he gets into a waiting car and begins arguing with his aide. McQueen keeps the camera static, almost bolted to the side of the vehicle as it pulls away.
The shot then tracks the vehicle as it moves from the rundown, shattered part of the ward towards Farrell’s home, a beautiful mini-mansion surrounded by greenery. The entire shot only takes a few minutes, showcasing how a few blocks are an entire world away and just how out of touch most local politics are with the needs of the community.
Next up was Soderbergh’s new flick High Flying Bird (available on Netflix now). I speak a little bit more about that in the ‘Links’ section below, but needless to say it’s a good movie with an excellent central performance. Soderbergh directly engages with some of the racial politics present in American sport and the big business that surrounds it, something its closing scene speaks to even more.
Finally, I caught up with Assassination Nation, a frenetic, swaggering, war cry of a movie. The film begins as a social/cultural satire in the vein of Heathers as the action follows four girls traversing the hell of high school in the modern world of social media and local scandal.
It’s also, with some relief, that in the year of our lord 2018 we actually have a trans actress playing a trans character in a central role. See Hollywood. It can be done. Hari Nef is fucking great in this movie.
It’s not long though before the movie takes an even darker turn as the secrets of everyone in their small town are torn from the cloud and scattered across the net for everyone to see. Hate mobs form, rhetoric tilts towards the extreme and things get very The Purge very quickly, resulting in everyone in the town turning on the central four (crises always need scapegoats after all).
From this point on the film becomes a rush of neon colours, glorious tracking shots, and gallons of blood, all punctuated by a cathartic outpouring of female fury.
It’s not a perfect movie and the movie’s descent into violence is a turn too many for some, but this has future cult movie written all over it. A film very much of the now and well worth catching up with.
Links
As mentioned above, Soderbergh has a new movie out, High Flying Bird, which comes highly recommended. With a sharp script by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) and a fantastic central performance by Andre Holland, it’s a timely piece on racial politics in the ‘game on top of a game’ of American sports.
Like Unsane, his last film, the entire film was shot on an iPhone.
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The Verge has a piece on the tech used.
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The Ringer has a piece on the rise of movies shot on the tech.
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Finally, IndieWire goes into the freedom the iPhone gave Soderbergh.
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Meanwhile, The Atlantic goes deep on new findings in the realms of animal cognition and poses the question, do animals have feelings?
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Chomsky keeping it real as always at The National Observer.
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The NY Times has an excellent profile of the hugely talented Phoebe Waller Bridge.
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The Outline has an excellent post on those ‘guys who love logic’ - you know the kind…
“This might not seem surprising at first — when it comes to contentious beliefs, it’s not uncommon for people to act as though their view is the inherently superior one. But what’s remarkable is how ridiculously confident these men became, in a relatively short time, in their unique philosopher-king-like possession of objective truth and superior analysis… all while copying their arguments from an echo-chamber of poorly cited webcam videos and anonymous internet comments.”
As a bonus here is a (constantly updated) resource of articles debunking the vague and spurious claims of one Mr Peterson.
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Finally, Emily Raboteau’s post called ‘Climate Signs’ at the NYRB is one of the most thought provoking pieces I read recently.
Recently a number of electronic billboards (the kind usually pointing out road works or diversions) have been appearing around New York with glaring messages about the impending climate catastrophe we’re all going to find ourselves in. Emily bonds with a stranger (via Twitter no less) and they take a trip to the locations of the various signs around the city whilst discussing how they think about climate change as well as the future it may hold for the next generation.
“The familiar equipment of the highway sign gave authority to the text. Because it was parked in the wrong place, the sign appeared hijacked—as in a prank. I understood myself to be the willing target of a public artwork but not who was behind it. The voice was creepily disembodied. I admired its combination of didacticism and whimsy. But even with its puns, the sign was more chilling than funny. The butt of the prank was our complacence, our lousy failure to think one generation ahead, let alone seven, as is the edict of the Iroquois’ Great Law.”
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See you in two!