Year Of The Month
Toshiro Mifune. Isuzu Yamada. One of the greatest tragedies ever written. What else is there to say?
Despite being a different language, a different setting, and a different set of characters, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood may be my favourite iteration of Macbeth. The interesting thing about William Shakespeare’s plays is that, as complicated as the dialogue and often the plotting is, the action itself is always very simple (even if you have situations such as the protagonist getting captured by pirates offscreen). Puns, cultural references, politics; these things can evaporate as soon as you try to translate them. Killing your boss to take his job on the advice of your partner is something that anyone can grasp. Lady Macca is everyone’s favourite female Shakespeare character; written by a man in a world where women were property, and yet a self-actualized working woman of 2026 who ironically throws around ‘girlboss’ as a term of endearment finds something to relate to in her quest for power that crumbles when guilt hits her.
The two leads are a large reason why. Nobody in this world can show a shift from zero to one hundred as well as Toshiro Mifune; it isn’t just that you believe that this man can suddenly access this volcanic rage at the drop of a hat, but that you want to go on that journey with him. He isn’t just emotionally hysterical, it’s joyful to empathize with his hysteria; anyone can be emotionally unstable, but Mifune conveys the glee of giving into your feelings. Of course, this also means he’s excellent at conveying lack of emotion – coolness, both in the colloquial phrase intended to convey a detached above-it-all charm, and in the sense of being calculating and level-headed.
Mifune’s intense emotions aren’t as vivid in Throne of Blood as they are in The Seven Samurai, where Kukuchiyo is a bratty child who develops into a cunning warrior; nor is he nearly as cool as in Yojimbo, where the nameless-and-yet-eponymous character is ruthlessly cutting up two crime syndicates. Instead, it’s an artful blend of the two, one that shows the role of Macbeth (or, fine, Washizu) requires these seemingly contradictory sides. His seeming coolheadedness descends into vivid, bloodthirsty emotion. Perhaps that’s all there ever was to him.
I am equally enthralled by Isuzu Yamada as Asaji (or Lady Macbeth, if you prefer). The interesting thing about the scheming woman behind the throne using her feminine wiles to manipulate men is that she seems to be almost entirely the product of men. Women, in my experience, write their protagonists to be just as active as men; most people prefer to act upon rather than be passive-aggressive. I’m not saying this about Lady Maccers in particular, but when men write characters like that, they tend to project their own insecurities onto her – if not what they would literally do as women, or projecting their own fragilities and weaknesses onto women, then at least recycling old hurts they’ve endured (or perhaps rewritten in memory).
Chiaki manages to embody what Lady Maccers represents: ambition that disintegrates in face of the reality. If Macbeth is the dual relationship between emotion and reason, Lady Macbeth is the relationship between ambition and humanity. Chiaki projects not emotion, nor even reason, but power. Her eyes themselves show that what she sees isn’t the object in front of her, but the goal she’s pursuing. Her arc is a process of corruption; her very body seems to corrode before our eyes as the guilt overruns her. We all like to think of ourselves as rational, as ahead of everyone else, or that we’d cut up our enemies without a second thought and move on. The truth is that most of us are, if not weak, then at least less able to dehumanize either ourselves or others than we’d like to believe (it’s very hard for a human to do things that aren’t human).
Really, that’s the dual points of the story. Macbeth kills because it’s too easy; Lady Macbeth dies because it’s too hard. These points hang over many Kurosawa films; I think particularly of Stray Dog, where Mifune’s character is eager to dehumanize the killer and make himself a hero and Takashi Shimura takes great glee in cutting him down, knowing how exhausting that approach can be. Perhaps he’s simply too familiar with Macbeth, knowing how it ended.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Red vs Blue, Season Two, Episode Six
“Just watch me.”
“How can I watch her? She just turned invisible.”
“And yet, I was still able to check out her ass. That’s why I’m a pro.”
“You could have walked back to the base in the time we’ve been discussing this!”
“Caboose, we’re three hundred yards away. I don’t think they heard us.”
“I think I heard something!”
“I’m sure that was… just a coincidence.”
There’s a really great scene where Simmons is ‘secretly’ hiding out with the Blues ‘without’ their knowledge, and Church gives him a rundown of the Reds which includes revealing he actually likes Donut. The interesting thing about this show as a comedy is that it actually runs through ‘situations’ with even more rapidity than The Good Place, mostly as a result of the story its structured around; this section of the show is working really well at burning through concepts at the exact right pace, that presumably being a side effect of its original structure of five minute episodes (for example, the plot of The Quest is burned out when it’s done, and we’ve already moved onto Tucker Is Sick).
“As you know, I’ve never really liked you. Not even a little bit.”
“And thus ends another meeting of the pronoun club. Same time next week, everybody!”
Incredible moment where Grif manages to short-circuit Sarge’s stupid idea for a mock trial by pointing out that Donut will be as annoying as possible about it.
Alien vs Predator – pretty fun, it takes a good while to get to the AvP action but in what I’m now realising is Classic PWSA Style it fills the early going with video game-y “check out this weird impossible location” stuff that kept me entertained until the action hit. I like the way it handles the conflict, and the humans caught in the middle of it are pretty solid with a good lead performance from Sanaa Lathan. Definitely not one of the best films to contain an Alien or a Predator but not the worst either, I had a good time.
Event Horizon – figured I’d finish up PWSA week by rewatching this one, which I’ve always loved but hadn’t seen in a long time. I hadn’t actually seen any of the Hellraiser movies the last time I saw this, so I was wondering if it would be diminished now that I know exactly how indebted it is to that franchise but you know what? It’s still a blast, with much better FX and production design than the movies around it in his filmography and a much deeper ensemble cast.
Live Music – Caleb Nichols, over from the US for a third local show in just over a year. I’m not complaining, their stuff is great, kinda slightly folky indie-rock with strong melodies, lyrics and vocals. Support this time around came from European Sun who I was not really into musically but their kinda earnestly emotional songwriting still won me over a little by the end.
Woooo live music! This Nichols fellow sounds like an ex-pat in the making.
And Anderson’s location work is very strong but I think that’s why he tops out at B+ level for me, there’s too much wheel-spinning in this regard that detracts from where more interesting stuff could be developed (I feel like Event Horizon, while enjoyable, is exhibit A in this regard). I think Shopping might be my favorite of his because it’s a debut and that unfinished aspect feels scrappier and more in tune with the larger mood, and it is also in line with the fantastic janky sets.
Soldier in my mind is underrated with a great, very minimal Kurt Russell performance.
Sanaa Lathan is the reason I hold fondness for that movie. She’s so great, and I really do love her arc.
Waiting for Guffman — RIP Catherine O’Hara. This has a lot more melancholy if not darkness around the edges than Best In Show or A Mighty Wind, especially in its bittersweet ending, but there’s also stuff like the disastrous dinner at the Chinese restaurant where O’Hara gets drunk and lets stuff out that is clearly curdling in her (this is also very funny). But the play itself is a joy, and Bob Balaban is the secret star of the movie — his face when watching O’Hara and Willard perform is motionless and yet it says everything.
Driving Miss Daisy — forgot Miss Daisy is Jewish and that this is a large part of the movie, which makes it interesting but also seems part of the larger dodge in terms of engagement with the Civil Rights Movement. Freeman gets to tell Tandy off about her prejudice but everything in the literacy scene is played Stanley Kramer straight, unnecessary condescension, and there’s quite a bit of this here. The performances themselves are very good and it’s better than its reputation as the anti-Do The Right Thing — it’s not the movie’s fault the Academy is full of dipshits — but it’s not unfair for it to be tagged with that either.
Live music — acoustic set from Sarah Borges at a local store, she is a great performer/host in settings like this and it was fun to hear her songs on just guitar and bass (with the occasional joke about how there should be a guitar solo here), they stand up to being stripped down.
Inglorious Basterds — slower than I remembered in some ways, Menke’s editing is still god-level but the build of the movie is strange (the third chapter is slowest and it is also the real start of the story, you could begin the movie here and it would play just fine without the prologues of the first chapters). My kingdom for Adam Sandler instead of Eli Roth, who is pretty terrible in his introductory scene (it is very funny that he apparently made the crap Nazi movie though, the only good shots clear ripoffs of Saving Private Ryan). But the end brings things together — the fourth chapter is one of the best things Tarantino ever did*, exquisite tension and mistrust and fucking up, so much of the movie is about the mistakes people make. And the end is ridiculously blunt and effective, having Hitler laugh at the death on screen right before the giant face comes up and it is impossible — impossible — not to laugh with murderous glee at these fucks getting got. The power of cinema! Which kills our hero in a moment of weakness, and this time around it struck me how the one person who has absolutely nothing to do with movies (the film is full of actors and critics and people trying to be actors and filmmakers) is Landa and for all the film’s embrace of film’s power the action that ends the war is arguably not the carnage but the realpolitik outside the theater that Landa orchestrates. The final action can be read as the triumph of the image, the cinema, over the lies and misrepresentations that run throughout the movie and that Landa cheerfully tries to live on inside of — it is also explicitly referred to as a potential masterpiece in an echo of Goebbels’ exact words about his own work, and Tarantino claiming the status of one is aligning himself with the other. Purposefully I think — this remains a knotty and unsettling movie.
*Christoph Walz deservedly broke out because of this movie but August Diehl as Hellstrom is exquisite, he’s in a slightly more familiar sadistic SS guy role but in this section he’s without Landa’s general power base and he is fantastic using power despite being out on an edge
I suppose it’s not surprising that we both watched Waiting for Guffman this weekend, and of course we’d both mention the ending, but I’m delighted that we both singled out Bob Balaban.
Balaban is extremely reminiscent of my choir teacher in high school, the just-this-side-of-prissy clamped mouth of disapproval and the extremely tightly wound nature, it is remarkable. I love how everybody immediately rebels when he takes over the show for a hot minute, he is not wrong in certain particulars but clearly not right for this role. Part of the heartbreak of the movie is that the people here, Corky included, are doing good or at worst enjoyable work, just not on the level they imagine themselves — Balaban is not a director, but he is a conductor and there is a wonderful moment of grace when he finishes conducting the overture at the start of the play and has a brief smile at a job well done. And it is! That overture is great!
The end is also American action triumphing over European realpolitik, you can negotiate for a man’s life and still kill him if the real prize is present, if mutilated.
Parade, the musical I’ve come to be obsessed with about the trial and lynching of Leo Frank, has a book by the screenwriter/playwright of Miss Daisy and is part of his trilogy about being Jewish in the South. It has some Kramer leanings too but is much more engaged with the insidious nature of Southern white supremacy and image versus reality, helps to have Jason Robert Brown as songwriter. “The Old Red Hills of Home” is stunning in it’s dissonance: “I go to fight for the old red hills of Georgia/these old red hills of home/let all the blood of the North spill upon them/til they pay for what they wrought/taken back the lies they’ve taught.” (The recent revival intentionally features the Black actors on stage not singing, silent and watching the white ensemble in their creepy harmony.) Worth listening to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSBobOMj-ww&pp=ygUZb2xkIHJlZCBoaWxscyBob21lIHBhcmFkZQ%3D%3D
Presumed Innocent (the movie) – Deputy DA (for some reason called “prosecuting attorney” here) Harrison Ford is asked to lead the investigation into the murder of a colleague. A colleague he had a torrid affair with. Naturally, he is the only suspect in the case, and has to turn to Raul Julia as Alejandro “Sandy Stern,” a defense attorney he has opposed frequently. This is based on the first of Scott Turow’s many best selling courtroom drama/legal thrillers, and while I have not read this one, I am familiar enough with Turow’s style to know even before we begin, we lose something in not seeing much of the lead character’s inner life. Though Ford is so dour and low energy that I am not sure how much inner life he’s got. Overall, this is a low energy film, director Alan Pakula and cinematographer trying to keep things grounded but just flattening the narrative. Only Julia and Paul Winfield as a somewhat sarcastic and mildly corrupt judge bring the energy. The solution to the whodunit is kind of hard to buy. And there is just too much of the Scheming Temptress to Greta Sacchi’s prosecutor turned mistress turned victim to not have the sour taste of misogyny here.
The Practice, “Judge Knot” – A beloved judge is suspected of taking bribes by the Justice Department, and Bobby and Helen are strong-armed into running a sting to catch him. Watching this one after watching Presumed Innocent is fascinating, since there is definitely connective tissue between a Turow novel and this show. (It’s utterly no surprise that David E. Kelley was showrunner for the recent reboot of Presumed Innocent.) Turow and Kelley both love to deal in ethical questions, and at least occasionally like to give us whodunits and twist endings. And this particular episode, with a judge who wholeheartedly believes he is upholding the higher standard of justice while taking bribes, does remind me of what I would see in a Turow book. (I need to read some more of them and see if his skills are still around, or if my decision to stop reading after a while was the right call.) Bruce McGill is excellent as the judge, with Dennis Boutsikaris as the scheming US Attorney and Gregory Itzin playing his third different lawyer in three appearances.
Doctor Who, “The Underwater Menace” – The earliest lost Second Doctor Who serial reacted in animation. This time around, the Doctor and friends are in both the future and the undersea realm of Atlantis, where the Atlanteans are of course water-breathers, and where a human scientist has promised to make Atlantis rise again. Except he really plans to destroy the world? This one is barely coherent, but Troughton and his companions are having a lot of fun, at least, and the animation probably looks a lot better than the FX of the time did.
Miss Marple, “The Moving Finger,” part tw0 – Turns out that the poison pen letters were all a fake, meant to provide cover for an apparent suicide that was of course murder (though how Miss Marple knew it was murder is not clear to me). Though the second murder, not disguised at all, makes little sense. A generally entertaining episode that is more fun for seeing two couples pair off. (Marple plays a small part here, in part because in the book she is absent till near the end.)
MASH, “Deluge” – It’s a bad day when the People’s Liberation Army enters the war to help North Korea. In November 1950. This is the moment the show come unstuck in time, since we were told BJ and Potter arrives in the fall of 1952. And this sense is reinforced by a selection of Movietone News clips that include the parade NYC gave McArthur in the spring of 1951 (even as the story itself has Frank saying “McArthur promised we’ve be home by Christmas). Any attempt to pin the events to a chronology end here, which is fine. But weird. Anyway, the episode is pretty good overall, and the use of the newsreel clips – a late decision to pad out a short episode – is very effective. Besides, who doesn’t love Dagwood the ping pong playing cat?
Those newsreel clips work so well: a surreal and sometimes viciously satirical juxtaposition with the world outside the endless parade of devastated bodies.
And of course, a sneak preview of the next war as the French are, er, routing the Reds in Viet Nam (two words).
Julia is a hoot in Presumed Innocent, a much needed shot in the arm.
Wanted to mention this: despite the success of Turow’s books, there has never been another big screen movie based on one, and only a handful of made for TV movies and the like. (I have no idea why, though it seems that Turow hasn’t written as many as I thought.) So we missed any chance of even a second Sandy Stern movie with Julia before his untimely passing. (Hector Elizondo, a very good actor if not Julia, played the part in a miniseries. Weirdly, the character is not in the remake.)
My Neighbor Totoro
Technically, I watched this on Thursday when I was home sick, but I forgot to write it up on Friday. This is a beautiful film in every meaning of the word–the animation is sumptuous, detailed, and lovingly crafted, and everything is handled with a simultaneous gentleness and exuberance that I’ve never seen anyone else equal. The scene where they call the trees out of the ground has the punch of some of the best Fantasia segments, and then the wild wonder of it is caught and kept in a survivable way–“It was a dream! But it wasn’t a dream!” the girls cry in delight. Is here any better way to capture the impact of this kind of children’s fantasy? The exact presentation of the magic doesn’t last, but the magic is still real, and the signs are there, and life is full of them: what a treat to live in a world of green growing things, which is the same as a world of cat buses.
Also, I identify with Totoro, because I too would want to move house if some kid woke me up in the middle of a perfectly good nap.
Waiting for Guffman
A fine and funny film. Parker Posey’s appearance in the “where are they now” epilogue is one of the more quietly brutal scenes Guest has ever done, though.
These songs are all catchy enough that in-universe Bob Balaban is the only person involved with Red, White, and Blaine who could really believably have a professional stage career–I mean, it might be dinner theater, but it would be something. Justice for Bob Balaban!
Screen Drafts talked about this when the movie came up on the Mockumentary draft, but there’s something so poignant about the cast being so devastated by missing out on Guffman (a deflated hope that could never, ever have been realized in the way they were imagining) that they overlook the real, simple pleasure the man who took his seat felt in the show.
I Want to Live!
More on this on Wednesday! But vomas was right.
Bugonia
Lanthimos’s most normal film? Unfortunately, that includes it signposting its importance and dangling shiny baubles associated with political thought without actually having many real ideas; I got more meaning out of The Menu than I did out of this. But the guy cannot make a boring film, so even if this is no Dogtooth, it’s lively and fucked-up and full of tense, weird, specific scenes.
The Sea Hawk
This shit is cinema. Breathtakingly cool action–the oars splintering as the two ships move together in the first raid! some of the most energetic, magnificent swordfights ever put to film!–that always comes with clear (and sometimes multilayered) stakes. Flynn is incredibly charismatic. If the movie has a fault besides “Panama is sepia” (the ancestor of yellow-tinted scenes in Mexico?), it’s that he has far more chemistry with Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) than he does with his designated love interest, Doña María (Brenda Marshall), who never really gets much to do and whose big attempt at mattering to the plot doesn’t work. But back to the much more common good: I like that this occasionally gets more complicated and nuanced than it needs to–it gives Claude Rains’s Spanish ambassador a real emotional connection to his niece, for example, so that he’s an antagonist but not an out-and-out villain. Loyalty, swords, piracy, battles at sea, poignant losses, spycraft, reversals of fortune. Good, good shit.
Inside No. 9, “Empty Orchestra”
A rare non-genre episode: we have a fancy dress office party (“CUNTGROTULAIONS”) in a rent-a-room karaoke venue, and the songs keep coming as characters reveal themselves to us and to each other. Lower, more plausible stakes–is someone getting fired? Will someone get humiliated? Will an affair be revealed?–don’t mean a lack of tension, though. A very well-crafted break from the usual pattern, with an uplifting ending that even feels a bit transcendent in the moment, the way giving yourself over to the music usually does.
I am quite simply besotted with this show.
Inside No. 9, “Diddle Diddle Dumpling”
Shearsmith plays a man who becomes obsessed with locating the original owner of a single shoe he finds outside his house. This leads to some excellent, if hard-to-watch, comedy–the “one black man’s dress shoe” flyer, where he realizes the word order might be misleading, or him asking a potential owner to identify the correct photo of the shoe’s tread pattern–but it’s also all tightening the screws on a complete breakdown. Great Magic reference in the scene where his wife asks him to go two minutes without talking about the fucking shoe (I think they pull an exact line of dialogue from it). And Shearsmith is so good here, really selling both the desperate comedy, the obsessive horror, and the heartbreak.
The reveal of why the shoe was a trigger for his unraveling works so well that any subsequent reveals, especially the final one, are unnecessary and in fact a bit over-complicated. That said, there’s a beat about the ending that is very fucking clear that apparently people persist in misunderstanding, which is giving me my “Tristan @ people thinking Tony Soprano lives” moment. No! Yes, technically the thing they’re saying could have happened isn’t literally disproven, but it’s obviously far, far less substantiated by the text in several different ways! If they were right, different choices would’ve been made here!
SEA HAWK FUCK YEAH. Such a blast, and the naked propaganda of “WE MUST COME TOGETHER TO FIGHT GERMANY I MEAN SPAIN SPAIN DEFINITELY SPAIN” is pretty great. But yeah, the action here puts a lot of contemporary shit to shame, and that’s before you even get to Flynn.
I think the fake Guffman does take pleasure in the show, he also noticeably is happiest about the balloon he is bringing to his nephew so that’s a legit, uh, deflation for our cast. Sadder to me is how the rest of the town really does love this though, and everyone moving away from their most appreciative if not most sophisticated audience is a real downer. And I had forgotten about the runner of Michael Hitchcock being clearly besotted with Guest, there is a very funny implied joke that Guest finds him so annoying he purposefully schedules the auditions so Hitchcock can’t make it but the less funny implication is that returning Hitchcock’s affections would mean Guest has to explode the lie about his “wife” and more cruelly the lie to himself that Blaine isn’t where he can find a life and happiness. Grim shit! Bring on the goofy dogs!
I am such a sucker for that final speech directly to contemporary audiences. Fuck yeah.
True about the balloon, and this is all beautifully put, especially bringing out the grimness about Corky (Hitchcock constantly looking at him with adoration is such an excellent ongoing background bit, though, and I feel like there’s a hint of an implication that he maybe arranges for Keeslar’s last-minute exit from the show). But the “most appreciative if not most sophisticated audience” bit stings too: you can totally see how Levy could have remained a dentist who also becomes a beloved local talent (he doesn’t even bump into shit when he has to do that scene without his glasses! He’s got the skills!), and instead he flees completely into the dream. “Don’t quit your day job” is always used sarcastically, but I feel like this movie gets that there’s good advice for artistic happiness there, too: there can be real joy in being a hobbyist.
Levy’s audition is wonderful, it is corny and he’s a bit pitchy but like you say, he has the goods and there is a nice shot of both Guest and Balaban seeing and appreciating this (again, compare with Balaban’s disengagement from Willard and O’Hara, his reach for the glass of water cracks me up). And Levy really enjoys developing this part of himself over the course of the film, him taking his talents to South Beach for a room of grandmas who theoretically are his prime audience but don’t give a shit feels like a delusion as well as a mistake (and while there’s no need for his wife to be there her absence still feels pointed).
I’ve seen the movie Bugonia is based on, Save The Green Planet, and it both tracks that Lanthimos would keep the ending and it sounds like it threw off audiences more than the original did.
Never forgotten any of the musical numbers in Guffman, Balaban being quietly irritated with every single thing, or the image of Levy cross-eyed the whole time.
One has to keep the ending! Definitely the correct adaptational/remake choice.
Miyazaki’s love of cats comes through in Totoro’s grumpy refusal to move, how many times have I had my pets try to avoid even a small change in position? (Or look surprised and disappointed.)
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder slime tutorial – Slime tutorials are a lesson in amateurish, quick composition, the “director” trying, often a few beats behind, to capture a show and discovering in real time what *needs* to be archived for posterity: an actor’s face, a bloody digital projection background, a particularly clever staging (“I’ve Decided to Marry You” for instance). This wouldn’t be as much of a problem, and there’d be less people pissing off Patti LuPone, if Broadway musicals were professionally filmed, but the need to archive and document is frankly commendable, no matter how sloppy. There’s probably an essay in this. Anyway, this is a YouTube video of what’s effectively Kind Hearts & Coronets the musical, including witty lyrics (It’s frankly all been rather mystifying/Do forgive me if I scoff/But is it not a trifle odd/How they’ve all gone off to God/Suddenly they’re congregating underneath the sod), Jefferson Mays as all eight (or nine?) family members and some nasty murders that made me laugh very hard. The biggest changes are actually in the ending that suggests the class system in Britain can just keep going and going, grinding everyone down: you won’t get caught as much as there is always someone who stands to gain in catching YOU.
The Pitt – Up to Episode 11, more thoughts tomorrow. Mohan is such a lovely person, Javadi keeps going up in my resident/interns rankings, and Santos is about in the middle – great moral compass and she probably is too arrogant and single-minded to be working in the ER, where everyone does need to be in a team. (Langdon losing his shit at her is still not okay, and yet he has real sensitivity and compassion for Mel.) Dana reminds me of the nurses I have known which is a compliment to the show.
I know it’s well in advance of where you are on the show, but last week’s episode had a delightful reveal about Javadi, so now I’m excited for you to eventually get to it.
Sweet! Frankly I want her to tell off her mom (correctly diagnosing her patient was a big win, hard to tell if Dr. Javadi feels proud or mildly annoyed to be robbed of power over her daughter).
Opus. Ayo Edibiri plays a young music journalist, who has been invited to visit the compound of reclusive popstar (a Prince-MJ like figure, but white) played by John Malkovich. What follows is sort of a cross of The Menu, with Malkovich as Ralph Fiennes, and Midsommar with Edibiri as Florence Pugh. The movie isn’t quite as good as either of those. I think we really needed an extra half hour or so of Maliovich’s delusions of grandeur and Edibiri’s descent into madness as she uncovers the cult. The final twist is that
. Malkovich’s central idea is a sort of Crime and Punishment / Nietzsche take that the apotheosis of art requires sacrifice, perhaps taken a little too literally, and that it transcends morality. But also he’s just kinda petty, and a little more time dealing with that tension of whether he’s an Ubermensch or just a petty diva would help. (By contrast, in the Menu, it’s made clear that Fiennes really is that guy).
The flaws stand out, but overall good work from edibiri and malkovich. Amber Midthunder is there with a small role but she is very scary.
stranger things, finished. Okay, I was a little harsh on Will/Noah Schnapp earlier. He ends up doing decent work as an actor.
I feel like the more they tried to explain everything the less sense it made. So some of the revelations we get in the final episodes raise more questions than they answer.
It ultimately ended up being pretty solid. I am looking forward to about 30% of the child actors having a career in the future.
Obviously the final twist is that Malkovich is a penguin.
Midthunder’s great, always happy to see her even in mediocre fare.
Best in Show – My Saturday night choice for the occasion, and why didn’t you all tell me you were watching Waiting For Guffman instead? Anyway, still one of Guest’s best, maybe the best; it feels remarkably brisk— we don’t get to the dog show itself until the halfway point of the movie, and it doesn’t feel like it dragged at all. Felt like an appropriate choice under the circumstances, considering how much sexual reminiscence of Cookie there is in this film. The Flecks (and Buck Laughlin, of course) were probably my favorites this time around; after that, tough call between McKean/Higgins and Coolidge/Lynch. Hey, how much weight do you think I can bench? Just take a guess. Ballpark figure.
What did we play?
Kinda just been sucked back into the Balatro vortex to be honest, I’m now at 98% on the stats screen and I feel like I’m never going to be truly free of its pull until I get those last few gold joker stickers…
A bit more of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: The Ivalice Chronicles. Into chapter 3, where the machinations of the plot are slowly starting to surface, but there is still the occasional moment of enforced plot stupidity with Ramza.
Pretty sure Ivalice Chronicles only has the original FFT, not FFT Advance.
Hollow Knight on Nintendo Switch
Made it to the City of Tears, probably the most gorgeous area so far. Which is saying something. Beat a few bosses, including the Soul Master. Some great combat, though I did lose a lot of cash at one point trying to beat a gauntlet of normal-ish enemies, by not even making it back to my ghost. Got the ability to hit the ground and open certain barriers, which opens up progression considerably. Made my way to the Royal Waterways, beat another boss and found a type of etheral inter-dimensional altar protected by some white moth. Played a little more last night after drinking and did surprisingly well. Turns out great game design can survive the drunkest of players. Made it to the Blue Lake, where I’ll pick off next week.
Man if that’s the enemy gauntlet I’m thinking of I hate that fuckin’ thing. I still die there pretty frequently on playthroughs, and I’ve played the game a ridiculous amount of times!
It’s one at the top of the City of Tears in a very cramped room with a bunch of flying guys and a few of the big guys with lances. You get a fragment of one of those white masks for it.
Yeah, that’s the one. I can get through nearly the entire game without a death at this point on a standard playthrough, excepting maybe a couple of bosses you are quite far away from… EXCEPT for that goddamn gauntlet.
At first glance, it doesn’t look like it should be that difficult, but the cramped space makes every enemy attack deadly, and gives little chance for a retreat. And the window to recharge your health is super small too. So nearly every one of the usual resources is unavailable to you. And on top of that, if you’ve already lost there once, you have to deal with your ghost, while also making him your first priority. And god forbid you fucked up on the way there and are low on health. Might as well get the ghost, take the L, and try again.
Macbeth kills because it’s too easy; Lady Macbeth dies because it’s too hard.
This is so elegantly, perfectly put.
This film has been on my list forever, and I’ve been avoiding it in the way I often do things I have incredibly high expectations of, but it’s past time to pull the trigger. Mifune is definitely a superb pick for Macbeth for all the reasons you mention, and it’s great to go in knowing there’s a top-notch Lady Macbeth here too.
Yamada is creepy as shit in this, the use of makeup to make her face ghoulish and implacable while still maintaining a facade of rationality is really unnerving.
Came here to shout that line out as well.
Oh, I think you’ll love it. I love the way the Scottish and Japanese feudal systems sort-of line up, too.
It’s incredible how the story beats and ideas translate beat-for-beat effortlessly. I suppose there’s only so many ways you can make a military.
And only so many ways things re-organize when the center starts decaying.
Great essay.
Year of the Month update!
Coming in February, we’ll be looking at 1957, including all these movies, albums, books, TV, yadda yadda.
Feb. 6th: Gillianren: The Story of Anyburg, USA
Feb. 13th: Gillianren: The Truth About Mother Goose
Feb. 16th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Incredible Shrinking Man
Feb. 20th: Gillianren: Our Friend the Atom
Feb. 27th: Gillianren: Sleeping Beauty’s Castle
This March, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, TV, etc. from 1980.
I still can’t decide about ’57 but I want to take Magnum, PI for 1980.