WholesomeChungusSocialist

You’re far behind in most regards, seemingly.

Care to present an argument? Not holding my breath, but would still be nice.

Anyone calling you an old man for this take is retarded. Contemporary Hollywood productions sometimes look good, but rarely mean anything. Regardless, the most potent cultural energy is within niche internet spaces. Has been for a while, though even many of these spaces are deteriorating due to burnout and lessened linguistic ability. We’re already immersed in an era of self-segregation in almost every aspect. This is what happens when Woke wins.

Right. But I think he also struggles to write men more often than we care to admit. Again, whatever, movie didn’t work for me. Maybe I’m just surprised by how much more I enjoyed Barbie.

Well, the key word there is genuinely. And you’re right, “I” have been puerile, try hard, insufferable. But why care so much (or at all) about opinions from anonymous people? There are no stakes; everyone is just talking past one another. This ofc goes for myself too. Besides, movies are now just entertainment. Nothing wrong with this at all. Maybe it’s an objectively good development, even. Idk, maybe the internet would be good again if we all acted more like 14 year olds on it. But who really cares anyway? Besides stiff/self-serious lawyers with auto caps turned off.

Oh my God, I got a precise line of dialogue wrong! The style/delivery is more important than the words themselves. And yeah, that guy is plainly unable to handle contradictory ideas. Thinking because I like Tarantino and his movies, I have to acquiesce to his opinion on another director. I think he completely missed that I said Tarantino was the “true talent with a sense of humor” rather than just the true talent, as well. Again, whatever. Nolan fanboys are so reddit, so literal, so concerned with accuracy, so Austin, so enamored with AI/LLMs, EVs, etc. What a shame that the more compelling 53 year old in PTA is basically not even known among the general public. Anyway, y’all will be rid of me soon. Terrible vibes on this site, especially looking at the politics board — earnestly crying about “democracy” in peril, probably tons of lawyers posting.

I’ve always loved a cool, removed voice. Can’t stand the gen x style on this site. Also funny that the guy who liked this has nothing more to offer. Oh well.

Way to take my username seriously lol. But really, the real comrades are like the one above/in this thread, hammering the “correct opinion”, unable to live with contradictions. Whatever.

I have no arts education whatsoever. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be alive rn, given the disenchantment that surrounds them, and how above all else, Americans are by and large fearful of distinct, hostile voices. I’m just an observer who’s thankful to be alive.

Won’t argue with you, and if you’ve read through my comments in full for whatever reason, you can probably tell I like being a contrarian. Like I thought Blonde was one of the best releases of 2022, for example. Just wish our culture would be less hive minded above all else, not that you necessarily are yourself.

Gotta be honest, I wrote all of that while on uppers, but still believe what I’ve said, generally. I’ve never seen either of those shows — even as TV became much more ambitious starting with The Sopranos, I just haven’t had much interest in it aside from the aforementioned, Mad Men, etc., — but I’m guessing Jonathan checks some of Christopher’s more overwrought literary tendencies, or maybe both of them check one another. Idk. Again, just my opinion. I still maintain that Chris Nolan is otherworldly visually talented, but just doesn’t quite have the flesh of a great (or probably even good) writer. So few do, though, and we — in the Anglosphere, at least — are in an era of journalistic snark, literary sincerity (unfortunately maybe thanks to David Foster Wallace), and fantastical fixations, most likely because of the shifting digital sands that so few (if any) can really make sense of just yet. That, or increased anxiety and hysteria (and narcissism) brought on by a slowly declining empire. Again, just my opinions. From what I know about him, he seems amiable and sincere. A genuine family man. Unfortunately, great artists are most often the opposite of that, at least when they create their best work(s). Again, just my opinion.

Yeah, Caro is a great talent. Just my opinion, but I think this writer named Peter Watson, who recently came out with one of my all-time favorite reads, The French Mind: 400 Years of Romance, Revolution, and Renewal, is an even better literary historian/journalist, which is ofc a huge pedestal granted. Keep in mind I'm a Francophile, so I'm biased. But maybe not, because something even good but lackluster would be instantly forgettable. Again, still gigantic respect to Caro. He's widely-read, but still not close to enough, given his talent. Just where we're at as a country, so be it.

So we should just agree with the majority opinion every single time? And no, I don't care that Tarantino has huge praise for Nolan. He and I are allowed to have separate opinions, after all. Pretty pathetic for an adult to not realize this, but maybe you aren't an adult. Also, you do realize every movie of his that Tarantino has praised was either co-written with his brother, who's clearly a much better writer, or contains very little dialogue, like with Dunkirk. I guess with the exception of Memento, but that was an adaptation of one his brother's stories. Tarantino has also been pretty mum on both Tenet and Oppenheimer, not that that would influence my opinion of either one of them. He's never taken to Hitchcock, you know. Or True Detective (season one at least). This ability to deliver critiques with his chest, not just his fingers, is just one of many reasons why so many of us love him and his work. Nolan just struggles when he tries to either create or parse through written drama that he has not directly experienced. Most do right now; no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Many other ways to tell or depict stories, obviously. Besides, dramatic prose has always been in the wheelhouse of gays/gay-adjacent men or women, with rare exceptions. Again, all just my opinions. Hate that the first person perspective is defaulted as the third person on the internet, but who wants to constantly say "I think" or imo or whatever before every single take?

Way to take me literally, dipshit. This happens to everyone who's too online/spends too much time on twitter, given enough time. And clearly you give a shit, lol. Americans are so culturally inbred at this point, it's really sad to see. Always weird to see how many Nolan fanboys are out there, when Tarantino, the true talent with a sense of humor, is right there. God, even worse if you took offense at the little Star Wars sequel dig.

God that's somehow worse. Nolan just cannot let anything breathe when he doesn't have direct experience from which to draw, like the father-daughter relationship in Interstellar, which I really enjoyed btw -- not a complete hater, just more disappointed. (know the daughter's name is Murph, can't remember the dad's, won't look it up.) Honestly you know who would've written a great screenplay for this? Dostoevsky. He should've been writing plays instead of novels anyway, as Nabokov rightly said. Anyway, bad year for American wide releases, along with those of the British, but who expects much from them these days? Anglo men haven't been able to write well for many years, probably, but I digress. Not that this is ever surprising anymore, since so few directors, writers, etc. can sustain (written) narratives for several hours (in a row/one sitting, but tv is declining before our eyes as well). Probably mostly due to twitter, which by now has been proven to scramble both writers' brains and most everyone else's (not another tired anti social media rant btw, just twitter -- fuck it now and forever). I mean just look at how Rian Johnson basically forgot how to write after perusing it; he let the cat out of the bag when he admitted he cried about people roasting him over his bad Star Wars movie, whose name I don't care to remember. Movies' cultural capital has tumbled over even just the past decade, which sometimes I still can't believe, but maybe it's not such a bad thing after all? Video games now (and you'd assume a decade from now to an even greater extent, if they can manage to scale the new hardware they've shown) are the dominant entertainment form, anyway. Whatever, I wrote way too much about this. Food for thought, take it or leave it, etc etc.

We’d all be better off of Nolan shrunk his ego and procured good screenwriters for anything other than his least-talky like Dunkirk. Like the scene where Oppy and his wife arrive at their new house only to find it lacks a kitchen, making him deliver, “I guess we’ll just have to build one” in that nauseating Marvel style? Took me out of everything, fair or not. Stinks that the Nora Ephrons (or even Nancy Meyers) of the world are long gone; turns out they served to keep shitty “dramatists” like Nolan in check.

Have never been able to get into Dostoevsky, — I think Nabokov was right to call him Russia’s greatest playwright who never was — but love the rest of that list, especially Anna Karenina, maybe the greatest novel ever written.

Have neither read this book nor seen this show, but Netflix sucks ass; wish they’d stop pretending to make anything ambitious so that things like The Killer would be made/distributed elsewhere and wouldn’t be unknown to wide audiences, but in this era, that’s just the expectation for all but maybe two to three movies (maybe more if you count Marvel/DC, which I unfairly don’t) released per year. Anyway, enough of this show or their business, how would you describe the book, apart from anything I can glean from wikipedia or elsewhere? I’m not sure if you’re familiar with The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell, which is also a WWII historical fiction, but is seemingly (again, would like your perspective) both much darker yet more plainly distant than this one.

Yeah Emerald Fennell is an underwhelming director. Wastes good actors.

Would've liked your comment, but have limited reactions for now. Again, don't want to critique her; her works just might not be for me. Since you haven't read any of his stuff, I'd start with Less Than Zero and then work your way forward in any order from there if you take to him. Having finished Glamorama since my first comment on him, I'd say that one's better than The Rules of Attraction, and probably better than American Psycho too. I'd place it with The Shards as either one or two depending on my mood, probably. Personally, I was first drawn to him when I noticed he was one of the only ones to eviscerate David Foster Wallace. He was right to imo; DFW was ashamed of his conservative leanings, far too obsessed with themes for his own good, and never could get over the clinical depression that plagued him throughout his life -- so much so that he was only ever a nonfiction writer who also tried to write novels. Anyway, I write on the side, and he, Truman Capote, and Christopher Isherwood are probably my biggest (literary) influences to date. Can't exactly be objective when talking about any one of them, but how can you be objective about anyone in the arts/entertainment?

With the way things are going -- primarily the absurd amount of things produced now (yes, this includes anything on a screen, all content) -- I think tv has seen its best days, and like a person/unlike certain mediums, will never return to them. Succession was probably the last ambitious, high-quality show ever made in America. Yeah, you'll still be able to list off tons of good things now and going forward -- "What about The White Lotus? What about One Piece? What about Hacks? -- and though I've only seen the bookends of that list, you just cannot create something with the potential to be great, with a good amount of risk baked in from the beginning like Mad Men, in this era of media. It's time to accept that more Americans than ever (seemingly of all ages, actually) primarily want comfort from their media, and though there's nothing wrong with this at all, you ofc lose all ambition when the market caters to this.

Also, I don't understand how Donna Tartt has sold so many books, not that that is indicative of much anymore (if it ever has been). Don't want to shit on her because she seems cool, but man she is far too much of a stylist for her own good. Similar to Camile Paglia in that respect, actually.

Yeah, I've been listening to his podcast for a while and know his general deal, but still I'm not sure how someone makes their way through his stuff and decides he's a hack. I've never listened to Once Upon a Time at Bennington -- can't stand its creator Lili Anolik; very well-off NY/Boston suburb mentality to her, with none of the talent or much of the taste that can go with that -- but might read this article anyway. Of his contemporaries, I think he's the only one who has been willing to engage with everything/everyone from Tarantino to Charlie Sheen to Kanye to Anthony Jeselnik to Gore Vidal to Edith Wharton. I really think he's the best American writer (of any medium) under 60 or so. Sure, you can say there isn't as much competition as there used to be in this regard, but I'd say there is -- it just takes a much different form than most might expect.

Just read Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones instead.

That's such a great book. No surprise -- he's an artist through and through. Really hope The Movie Critic doesn't actually turn out to be his last.