This incredible summer may be over but the warmth and sunshine of recent months will outlast the season. The bundles of optimism which rode atop each beam of light seem here to stay.
What a great time to have eyes and consciousness. Also a camera.
Here are some snippets of the summer spent away from work, where I successfully finished a challenging show in a new role, celebrated a milestone birthday, came to some realisations on the road, spent a lot of time in the water, improved at surfing, finally had a crack at beach volleyball, enjoyed great times with friends both old and new, and in the oddest and most awkward moment – was confronted with a request for a sperm donation (!) the week of my aforementioned birthday. My summer bingo card didn’t have that on it.
Well, it’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these – but as with every year I have endeavoured to watch all of the Academy Awards Best Picture nominees. I managed to get through six and a half out of ten of them. I’ll get around to Avatar eventually (seriously, over three hours is just self-indulgent and there is no way I’m doing that in a theatre), and Women Talking is next on my list. But chances I’ll see All Quiet on the Western Front are slim to none, because as we all know, war movies = colossal bore. Here’s the rest, followed by a handful of others I caught recently which didn’t get a nomination.
Movies (Best Piccy Noms)
Triangle of Sadness. The three bosses of each act.
Tár This was all about Blanchett – fantastic as always. And the rest of the cast lifted her presence on screen even further – with the bounce of a nervous knee or the compulsive click of a pen keeping a sense of icy fear in the air around her. The environment too keeps tension in the air – the cold concrete of her home, the metronome ticking like a clock counting down to her fate. The themes were timely – whether one can, or should, separate the art from the artist. That explosive climax on stage was terrific – although the epilogue felt a little more comedic and against the grain of the tone already set by the rest of the film.
The Banshees of Inisherin Tell ya what, I love an Irish accent, and this has plenty of them. Farrell and Gleeson may be the best cast pairing in this whole list – both characters feel very real. A melancholy dark comedy about friendship and loneliness. Everyone in this film is lonely – the only difference is how it is dealt with. I really enjoyed this.
Everything Everywhere All at Once Easily the most inventive and creative movie on this list, and I expected nothing less of Daniels. I wasn’t crazy about the narrative, but the style and cast more than made up for it. Get ready for this to be copied a billion times until it’s no longer fresh. This one will probably win, and as good as some of the others here were – I think this is the most well deserved. It’s current, it’s unique, it’ll be studied for years to come. Daniels have come a long way, and it’s terrific they’ve been able to make a film as wild as their music videos, which has found both financial and critical returns – all without dumbing it down.
Triangle of Sadness Each act of Triangle plays out like a miniature film of its own. The first was excruciating. One thing I can not stand watching on screen is couples fighting. The subject of the fight doesn’t even matter, it’s more painful than a horror movie to me. But I got through it. The second act is where things get wild and hilarious, and it’s best to just lose yourself in the moment (although it’s not for those with a weak stomach). The sight of a squeegee on the window mid-storm said it all for me. The “Lord of the Flies” third act flips things on their head, but much like flipping an hourglass, we find things to be familiar again soon enough. The themes of class and gender roles were not subtle at all, and the whole thing is really disjointed and doesn’t really flow together – but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Top Gun Maverick It does what it says on the tin, and to be honest, this is how I like my popcorn movies these days – beautifully shot action, simple stakes, low investment story, and zero to mild character development. It’s cheesy as hell, but that suits the tone. One thing though, this is not worthy of a best picture nomination – I get that the Academy is trying to appear “relevant” by adding movies like this and Avatar in the mix, but it misses the point. Those movies win at the box office – and that’s fine. But they are different beasts. Popular does not always equate to best. Some movies can do both, but this ain’t one.
The Fabelmans Christ, the first hour of this was a chore. I’ve long thought I could have happily grown up in the 1960s, with my adolescence in the 1970s. Many of the things I love are from this era. But holy hell, if I found myself in the saccharine 1950s world painted by the first hour of this movie, I would probably lose my damn mind before Kennedy even got into the White House. But I persisted and watched through to the end. It was fine, but there is truly no reason this story needed to be told. I gained nothing from it. It was Spielberg making a pointless movie loosely about himself, like an Ouroboros eating its own tail, simply because he could.
Elvis This is the “half” a movie I referred to above, as I wasn’t able to get to the end. Frankly, it’s a miracle I gave it a shot to begin with given my distaste for Luhrmann’s tired style. Austin Butler’s performance was easily the best aspect of this. Hanks was plain awful and cartoonish. And it failed at the one thing required of any good musical bio-pic – the music. The musical treatments were horrible. Luhrmann persists with mash-ups like it’s still 2006, and his compulsion to mix in modern beats with the old tunes results in the opposite effect to which I presume he was striving to achieve. It makes it look dated – some real “how do you do, fellow kids?” energy from Baz here.
Movies (Non Noms)
Infinity Pool. Even the title has layers of meaning.
The Menu I loved this. Ralph Fiennes is incredible, Anya Taylor-Joy is captivating, and Nicholas Hoult hilarious. I knew nothing about it going in and was all the better off for it. It builds and unravels at a steady pace, with the temperature turned up with each loud clap of Fiennes’ chef. It plays out with similar class-based themes to Triangle (above) and Infinity Pool (below) – and given the state of the world, I suspect this to be a continuing thematic trend for years to come.
Infinity Pool Trippy as hell, this is definitely not for everyone – you’ll likely either love it or hate it. I fell into the former category and embraced its insanity. Brandon Cronenberg’s direction is terrific – be it the off-putting slow rolls of the camera at the start, or the creepy use of light later in the film. Skarsgard gives one of his better performances, and Mia Goth keeps carving out that “terrifyingly alluring” lane for herself in Hollywood. The plot too was right up my alley, but the less said there the better.
Decision to Leave A Korean romantic mystery, where the mystery is a little obvious from a mile off, but the chemistry between the leads really leaps off the screen as they fall into the perils of romantic blindness. It runs a little long but it’s well worth a look if you’re into that kind of thing.
The Whale I’m not crying, you’re crying. This is all about Brendan Fraser and Sadie Sink. Both are terrific and bounce right off each other. There’s little meat on the bones of the story, and some of the overt emphasis on food felt unnecessary, but the emotional weight is where this movie shines. The 4:3 aspect ratio was a clever choice to keep the audience tightly enclosed in that apartment too. Also, the work done on Fraser is incredible. It deserves to win for best makeup and hairstyling.
You make me paranoid But I love being thought about You made the sun go down But I sparkle in the night You should run with me Cause running makes everything alright
I took this on what was easily one of the top three days of the summer. I could groundhog day a day like that.
The dog days of summer – a phrase which, for me, conjures images of a dog lazing in the shade, its tongue wagging, exhausted from the heat and doing nothing but exist purely in the moment. It lays there, staring into space, no concerns because it hasn’t the energy for them.
Of course, the term has nothing to do with canines, but I’m not letting that stop my imagination.
We’re at the sultry tail end of the season now when the evenings are almost as warm as the days, and every hot day is seized upon as though it is the last. The end of daylight-saving approaches like Langoliers on the horizon coming to eat up your time in the sun – snorkeling, swimming, surfing, drinking on rooftops, or just lazing around reading. I’ve been doing all of the above.
I read two books recently – Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman and The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef. They made a curious pairing, both dealing with the battle between the emotional and logical sides of the mind.
Goleman’s book explains how emotional intelligence can create a harmonious relationship between the rational and the emotional sides of the brain – how to use emotion rather than suppress it, and strategies for recognising and processing emotions when they distort judgment and disrupt logical thinking, often causing us to act or think irrationally.
In The Scout Mindset, Galef explores the mind using the analogy of two roles on a battlefield – a Soldier, and a Scout. The solider treats their thoughts and beliefs as objects to be defended whether or not they are correct – which naturally can lead to poor decisions. A scout on the other hand is able to see things clearly by regularly testing their own assumptions – they see things as they are rather than how they may wish them to be. One of the main ways a soldier mindset takes hold is when thoughts and beliefs are tied to personality. This can be used for personal gain – for instance, someone who sees running as part of who they are (“I’m a runner”) will be more likely to continue to run than someone who has a more general goal of trying to be more active. But it can often be destructive – for example, someone who sees a religion or political party as part of their identity is more likely to defend it beyond what is just, reasonable or right.
I found both books fascinating. The former was very eye-opening and personally challenging, while the latter brought validation to many of the ways I think already.
Around ten years ago I discovered and became fascinated with the Myers-Briggs personality test. For the uninitiated, it’s like astrology for the psychology crowd, and it reduces everyone into sixteen main personality types based off where they sit on the scale of four qualities. How much value can be placed on it is dubious, and it can’t be used as a predictor as some do, but I do find it interesting as a way of getting to know oneself, or those around them – and while it’s very misunderstood and gets misused, and overused, I think it’s deserving of at least a little more weight than a star chart.
According to these tests I’m an “ENTJ”, or “Extraverted Intuitive Thinking Judgement” (the opposite qualities being introverted, observant, feeling and prospecting). The strengths and weaknesses read to me like a football card profile – all true to varying degrees, some more apparent than others (most of them have softened a lot with age and conscious effort). Some of them even read as opposite sides of the same coin – I would argue that stubbornness is simply a negative spin on “strong-willed” – essentially the same quality, but one furthers personal achievement and the other presents a roadblock for others.
Discovering this back in the day was a revelation which helped me understand why my mind worked the way it did – able to see things so clearly and rationally, but only up until the point that emotion was involved, when my brain resembled a computer being thrown into the ocean. All of the personal strengths are washed away. In the past I have sometimes dealt with this by trying to suppress or ignore it in myself, and avoiding others entirely if there’s any fear of causing upset in them. Not that those situations have arisen all that often – I have a clear understanding of what I like and what I don’t, I usually figure people out pretty quickly and say what I think – why waste my or anyone else’s time? That would be inefficient, after all.
Happy place
But some things are out of your control, such as the immense stress of trying to get home in the midst of a pandemic, or the numbness of almost losing a family member in a car crash. Trying to find control only leads to the impression you’ve failed when you’re unable to affect change.
It’s absolutely easier on the mind to avoid these things entirely, but it’s an emptier and less colourful approach to life. Lessons can be learnt. Both of these books brought insightful perspectives on personal relationships. They also furthered a better understanding of others, and the broader world in general – including acceptance that some people and organisations are just bad and that not every action needs or has an explanation.
But you know, sometimes I’d just rather be that dog in the shade on a hot day, staring into the distance. That’s where the Chinese zodiac places me.
