the summer of my discontent is over (she said optimistically)…
It’s the last day of August. I have chosen to take this as a sign that it’s time to leave my funk behind and kick myself back into creative gear.
Bill & Ted Face the Music movie review: not-so-strange things are afoot…
The chill zen and goofy charm of GenX’s philosopher-fools remains intact, but their latest adventure is too familiar a retelling. Still, “Be excellent to each other” won’t ever not be worth heeding.
Tesla movie review: less than electrifying
Hawke is warm and empathetic, but the film’s artificiality is at odds with a celebration of the visionary’s life and work, and finally offputting. I wish this were either more earnest or more bonkers.
She Dies Tomorrow movie review: when it feels like we all die tomorrow
Filmmaker Amy Seimetz evokes a taut, cursed mundanity, an allegorical contemplation of culture at its most basic level: when it fails and everyone is hopeless. Accidentally hits our pandemic mood.
Starting at Zero: Reimagining Education in America documentary review: brave new day care?
Is this a documentary about quality day care for the smallest kids, or a slick PowerPoint presentation for policy wonks about the economic need to churn out cooperative corporate cogs from babyhood?
it’s too hot to think; my laptop concurs
This is all very frustrating. I was looking forward to getting back to work this week, and nature has thwarted me.
The Secret Garden movie review: weedy with misplaced eeriness
Pointless adaptation of the beloved children’s novel soaked in a gothic spookiness that seems to deliberately misunderstand the story. Neither literal enough nor magical enough. My heart was unmoved.
The Secret: Dare to Dream movie review: I’m positive this is awful
Nice Guy garbage man Josh Lucas negs sad sack Katie Holmes. Based on the pernicious self-help philosophy that insists that everything wrong with your life is your fault. You know: feel-good romance!
I’m back for more BBC World Service’s “The Arts Hour” again today, Saturday, August 1st
My second pandemic-lockdown, recorded-from-home appearance…
Radioactive movie review: science, bitch
Rosamund Pike is perfection in this intellectual romance, an unsentimental portrait of a woman striving to be appreciated for her mind at a time even more anti-woman than today. Feminist and flinty.
