What a finale. Watching everyone come together and use what they have learned and prove to themselves and each other how capable they are felt so good, while on the flip side of that we see devastation in Carmy. The restaurant recovers and runs smoothly without him as he sits alone, cold, and while falling victim to his insecure self-worth and ultimately inadvertently ruining one of the best things to ever happen to him in Claire. I knew the fridge issue would come into play in the finale, but didn’t expect it to happen like this. The rich complexity is that Carmy isn’t necessarily wrong. His focus given to Claire took him away from the restaurant, but Claire is also so incredibly good for him otherwise. She made him a better person, but in some regards also a worse leader during a critical time in his professional life. I hope that he can eventually find the right balance, repair things with Ritchie, and find happiness in his personal and professional lives. I think he needs to learn to relinquish some of the control he holds over the restaurant and lean on others around him who have proven themselves capable. His presence in their lives and pushing/challenging them has helped all those around him grow, and he just needs to give himself credit for that while also not putting so much pressure on himself. He’s shaping up to be a fantastic character and I can’t wait for more. Season 3 better be announced soon.
I don't know why some people are shocked at the ending. It’s basically the plot line of Crime and Punishment (the allusions to the book were given frequently). Joe isn’t punished in the sense of being in prison, and even though he’s technically free, now he is stuck with a girl just like him and a baby on the way when he would rather be with a “normal” girl he can manipulate and control. He is trapped and it’s a Gone Girl-esque ending. He even compared his new home with Love to a Siberian prison.
It was so funny watching Joe judge Love for all the shitty things she’s done. Like she was somehow worse. His murder sprees are not repulsive to him because he did them and he felt justified. That logic does not extend to others, just him. It’s a perfect mirror for showing just how delusional Joe is. The series isn’t about how he finds love. It’s about how Joe is a predator, using love as a way to convince himself he’s doing things for the right reasons. The whole point of Joe's character is that he will never be satisfied. It’s in his nature to crave what he can’t have. That’s why I thought the ending was perfect. Of course he is already interested in his “normal” neighbor. He is going to start fantasizing about her to escape his “tortured existence”.
Totally saw the Love twist coming from a thousand miles away. She was always coming on strong. Her killing Delilah was super predictable too. I actually liked that they made her psycho because Joe somewhat got a taste of his own medicine.
Overall, I enjoyed this season, but:
I’m a little disappointed in the lack of creativity. Season 2 had a lot of similar storylines to the first one: Love is the new Beck, Ellie - the new Paco.
Realism isn't necessary in fiction but some of the plot holes were annoying. How did Candace know exactly which storage unit was Joe’s? How could Forty turn on Joe so fast? Officer Fincher thought Joe could have been the murderer because of some expensive headphones but has done absolutely nothing about it. Joe reconstructing the glass box in the storage container was a bit of a stretch for me. This whole season, while entertaining, is completely unrealistic. It requires all characters to be morons and the hugest of coincidences to happen at every turn.
I was incredibly disappointed absolutely nothing from Joe's old life came back (other than Candace). He moved to a new city and changed his name - poof all his problems are solved? What happened to the PI the Salingers hired?
Candace's character had potential. They hyped her up in the first season so I thought she would do something but no, she didn't have an actual plan and was outmatched at every turn.
Was it the writers intention to insert cringy millenial jargon into every possible piece of dialogue? Really went too far compared to last season. And all the "woke" dialogue was so cringe, boring and trite.
It's easy to call Oldboy a movie about a revenge. It is, after all. Lee Woo-Jin wants revenge on Oh Dae-Su, Oh Dae-Su doesn't realize it for much of the film, but he wants revenge on Lee Woo-Jin. And each man is changed tremendously in the process. Lee Woo-Jin is not the nerdy photographer we see in flashbacks, but a suave millionaire who exacts his plan in style. Oh Dae-Su is not the pudgy lech we see causing trouble at the police station in the film's beginning, but a fearless fighter and nigh-detective with real purpose in his life. And yet, neither of them is better for it.
What's striking is that the spark that begins this conflagration is so tiny. Works like Match Point and Breaking Bad have toyed with themes about tiny events and small coincidences having outsized effects on people's lives. But Oldboy outpaces them on this front. Oh Dae-Su is almost done with his school, moving on. When he sees two people fooling around by chance, he absent-mindedly repeats the gossip to his friend, barely even aware of who they were or what he was seeing. And this small action led to innumerable deaths, torture of the living both psychological and physical, and irrevocable changes for Oh Dae-Su and the lives of the people he's touched.
The hollow consumption of revenge has been examined by more than a few works, stretching back at least as far as The Scarlet Letter and the name-checked Count of Monte Cristo. But there's something bitterly ironic about all this fuss, the entire impetus from the film, beginning with some punk kid thoughtlessly relaying some vague information about something he saw but didn't really process, appreciate, or care about. The film drives the irony home by having Oh Dae-Su scribble a list of his possible enemies in his journals, and have his best friend mention the hundreds of people's lives he's ruined, and instead of the revenge stemming from his many misdeeds, it's from an offhand comment that, unbeknownst to him, had a butterfly effect.
I think that's why this film stays with me a bit. I think it's why, beyond the twists that give it a memorable "holy crap" moment, the bloody end stands out so much. Because the entire enterprise is framed as so empty, so fruitless, so damaging to all involved. Lee Woo-Jin is desperately trying to rectify the grief he feels for the loss of his sister and lover. And yet once he has, once his plan reaches fruition, he asks what he has to live for, imagines her death once more, and kills himself, laden with the realization that all his grand plans cannot heal those wounds.
And he puts Oh Dae-Su in the same position, realizing that his quest for revenge was just as much a sham, that he's done more damage by becoming this monster than if he'd simply died, or gone to live his life, or never bothered to go on this Herculean (or Batman-esque) attempt to get to the bottom of what happened. That's why at the end of the film, he asks to forget, he asks to wipe away the revenge, wipe away that past rather than let it linger with him, to clear his heart of the anger and scars inflicted upon him over the past fifteen years. And all of this, every last bit of it, begins with a brief word to a gossip that the original informant didn't even remember. The absurdity of it, the senselessness of it, lingers far beyond the shock of the film's reveals.
Despite that, it's a film that could run on plot alone. The story of a man trapped without knowledge of why or by whom, who is freed and sets out to find his captor, works at an elemental level to rope in the viewer. The opening segment depicting Oh Dae-Su's is enthralling as a psychological experiment, making us wonder what it would be like to go through something so isolating and dehumanizing. It puts us on Oh Dae-Su's side as we too wonder who would do this to him, why they did it, and hope that he gets his revenge. There's a relentless momentum to the film, that parcels out these discoveries well along the way, while guiding us through Oh Dae-Su's maladjusted reentry into the world.
Park Chan-Wook's direction adds to the atmosphere of the film with his deft camera work and creative choices in presentation. The film is bathed in dingy, Fincher-esque greens and blues that convey the grittiness of the proceedings. While the long-take fight scene is the most notable visual flourish in the film, Chan-Wook uses a great deal of creative framing to convey the emotions of his scenes, from layering Dae-Su, Woo-Jin, and the picture of Woo-Jin's sister in the same scene, to the transitions that blend one scene into another.
There are, of course, those shocking reveals. Watching the film for the second time takes away the jaw-dropping reaction at the true identity of Mi-do. (Who, on second watch, feels less developed than I remembered). But to the film's credit, the twist still works on rewatch because of the effect it has on Oh Dae-Su. His aghast response, his near insanity that once again throws him into vacillations between seeking pity and mercy and making threats and vows of retribution, while over the top, still has power even if the twist itself is muted.
There's a degree of magical realism to Oldboy. The idea that Lee Woo-Jin could pull off his convoluted scheme even with the seemingly unlimited resources at his disposal, that hypnosis could work as well and as clearly as depicted in the film, that all the players would play their roles as necessary for everything the fall the way they did is more than a little unrealistic. And yet it works because more than anything, Oldboy feels like a parable, a fable, rather than a story that aims towards realism.
It is a fable about revenge, taking whatever liberties with plausibility it needs to in order to thread the needle of its message, of the hollowed out emptiness of anger and revenge and its inability to make up for loss. The tragedy is amplified by the nigh-random incident that sets it all into motion. But Oldboy is about more than revenge. It's about the compromises we make, about the lies we tell ourselves, about the way small events can shift the tides of lives, and about the people we can become when the baser elements within us--The Monster and the Calculating Avengers--consume us.
i think some people might be missing the point. yeah they they didn't end up flying off together happily ever after, but they did both get what they both needed.
Dom is last seen sitting in the plane, passed out. this is important because earlier it stresses the point that she has basically not had any kind of meaningful sleep or rest in like 5 years. this is her finally feeling some level of peace, and being in a place where she is not afraid of the worst and able to fall asleep peacefully.
Darlene has been so co-dependent it is crippling to her when she is forced to be alone. she runs off and has a panic attack in the bathroom, but wills herself to accept that she can be ok on her own and this serves as a turning point in her growth and ability to move on and be ok whether she is alone or not. she needs to be able to be alone before she can be with someone.
edit 12/11:
also forgot to point out what i believe to be an intentional play against the stereotypical scene in which the two would have united at the last moment, with a catchy pop song to go along with it by an artist who has been arguably borrowing from the 80s in a large portion of her catalog. and from what i can recall, but i could be wrong, the fact that you hear little to no current pop music as a part of the soundtrack in any way remotely similar to how it is used in this scene, serves to support the intended play against such cliches in other films/shows.
A somewhat lucid slice-of-life experience that chronicles the loves and life events of one indecisive 30 year old.
The Worst Person in the World manages to evoke the feeling of looking through the mental scrapbook of our lives; the one we all flip through after a milestone birthday or large life event. The feeling of quickly summarising large swathes of your life into the most poignant (and in some cases mundane) moments that stick with you forever. It was moving, touching, challenging and dare I say real(?) in its portrayal of navigating a contemporary relationship in modern life. It also made me realise the stark differences between a tiny generational gap of those in their 30s and those in their 40s. The juxtaposition of Aksels friend circle to Einvinds made it all the more jarring, and was shown without emphasis to great effect. Aksels all discussing settling down/family events while Einvinds are setting up Instagram pages, taking mushrooms, putting off having kids for environmental reasons and working service jobs well into their 30s. It's eye-opening, if a little depressing as I find myself turning 30 in the not too distant future.
There was much here I resonated with, many lessons I learned from the characters and a few quotes to boot. This feels like a movie that will sit with me for much longer than I anticipate, but I'll be happy it did every time I think about it. If I can manage to shake the existential dread it brings me that is.
Filled with a beautiful raw, black and white cinematography and stunning direction, screen-writing, and acting; La Haine is a movie that took me much by amazement.
La Haine is a French drama/crime film about anger, race, violence, and the harsh police brutality that is set in what seems to be painted as an extremely dull suburbs in Paris. It focuses on three characters whom are Vincent; a Jewish charged with rage and desire to be a gangster, Hubert; an African, smart and cautious boxer, and Said; an Arab who is quite both vigilant and bad tempered with a displeasure of certain aspects in his society. These all draw to la haine as they all consume off of each other's aspects during time in the brutal and dull suburbs, whilst additionally dealing with a tragic event that attaches more hate when their friend Abdel is brutalized by police during a riot and is left in a coma.
Although I found the film to be greatly scripted, directed and acted, I had a minor problem with it's tedious scenarios which seemed to lack pause in dialogues and that made me tiresome on attempting to keep up as I watched it in French with subtitles. The scripting was brilliant, with a very clear and bright manner of delivering it's message and narrative across, however, pauses were missing causing very little disturbances from the world of the protagonists. It felt like the film lacked detail about the world that surrounded them, including more depth in the protagonists' background. What have their life stories been? I wanted to know.
After a second season that barely had any Tyrell, we get a full episode set between the night of the hack and Elliot getting shot. As a fan of the show, I'm very pleased that they decided to do an episode like this - we knew bits and pieces, but now we know exactly what happened between the hack and Elliot waking up on that alleyway (unless they throw something else at us, which I wouldn't put past Mr. Robot) and we have Tyrell's full perspective during all of season 2 as they did an outstanding job of showing/mentioning specific moments that allowed the audience to appreciate the passage of time perfectly.
I feel like there was a need for a Tyrell episode that was fulfilled with this one. The psychopathic weirdness of the character has been entertaining to watch, but I always felt like I never understood him. The "you're not looking at what's above you" bit was always thrown at us as the moment when the character had this "enlightenment", but this episode shows the true meaning of that: he truly believes that fate wants him as a God-like figure along with Elliot. I was also intrigued by the amount of importance the Dark Army are placing in Tyrell and by how he basically took care of Stage 2 for the most part.
This episode had a different feel to it, I like to think we were supposed to be in Tyrell's mind much like we're constantly in Elliot's mind/perspective. It felt a lot more clear, linear - Tyrell, psychopath or not, is not delusional and nor is he suffering mental issues. If anything, the editing with quick cuts at various moments could be interpreted as his frustration/rage and obsessions.
Also: I particularly enjoyed the Cisco/Darlene and then Cisco/Dark Army moment, expanding Mr. Robot's storytelling. This is how you do a meaningful flashback - reminds me of Person of Interest.
Synecdoche, New York by Charlie Kaufman is my second favourite film of all time, and it is one that deserves to be interpreted.
This movie is the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, who's famous for writing films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation and Being John Malkovich and with this film, it's clear that he wanted audience members to be able to develop their own interpretations. He very well could have included a commentary track on his Blu-Ray, but he didn't, and I can understand why he wouldn't exactly want to explain everything.
Synecdoche, New York is a film that's built around themes. There are multiple themes in the film, but each is reincorporated enough times to show a sense of validity towards them. The biggest theme in the film is death, and from that central theme of death stems other themes and ideas that this film conveys. It's not just about death; it's also about the implications of death.
It's about dying with regret knowing that you've wasted your entire life not living.
It's about dying knowing that nobody truly understood you.
It's about dying without having finished your life's work.
It's about death coming unexpectedly and without warning.
Suffice it to say this film is a little depressing, but that's just a by-product of the unflinching honesty that Charlie Kaufman presents in his film.He very well could have sugar-coated it, but then we'd have a movie that's just disingenuous, and this movie not only wants you to be thinking about the characters, but it also wants you to be thinking about yourself.
Everyone in this movie gives a great performance, especially Phillip Seymour Hoffman (RIP). The cinematography and overall directing was outstanding and this definitely a movie I recommend.
Mike Nichols’ The Graduate gracefully transcends genre conventions with the use of one key factor: perspective. A perspective suffocated by youthful malaise for events yet to come. A submissive perspective tossed and turned by the will of adult superiors rather than his own. A perspective viscerally experienced through use of long tracking close-ups of Ben Braddock’s shuffle through the thick cascade of grown-ups, visual motifs emitting his inner sense of confinement, and his awkward, satisfying arc from a caged goldfish to a free-spirited dolphin.
This initial passivity is handled to full potential, generating tightwire tension from the elder Mrs. Robinson’s attempts at seducing his diffident innocence. Nichols analogizes Ben’s emotional states to bodies of water, once being trapped and controlled by outside forces in a swimming pool, and in another, sailing smoothly on a cozy pool bed and relishing in the presence of a lively, decorative fountain. Simon & Garfunkel’s soundtrack further enhances this thematic weight, figuratively charting Ben’s rise from the dark, silent abyss of emotional emptiness and passivity to a town-hopping hero charting his own path to instill a little more certainty into an undoubtedly uncertain future. Through Ben’s eyes, the older generation are represented with humorously exaggerated flourish, with the writers brilliantly tapping into parents’ natural, incessant need to control their children’s paths as well as their over-dominance that kickstarts Ben’s thrust into a more active control of his life.
By slowly exposing Elaine Robinson’s emotional scars and the similarities of her predicament, the universal naturality of Ben’s struggles is captured; with her joysticks also in hands of different pilots, the film’s themes immediately transcend social and gender boundaries and become mutually shared experiences. The same can be said for its masterful final seconds, which captures, through face alone, that despite the impermanence of life’s elations and the anxious uncertainty of an undrawn fate, these emotional pains can be eclipsed if fought together rather than toiled through alone.
