Device Notes

Siegfried Kracauer, in his 1941 review of Dumbo , complains that "the miracle does not result simply from the fact that the film is a cartoon film, but originates in the psychological effect of a 'magic feather.'"  He notes that Disney's older cartoons paid no heed to reality and created their own physical laws.  Minnie Mouse can turn her coat into a parachute without any explanation of why that would work.  Kracauer asks: "Is the cartoonist dependent on fabulous princes, wizards, and magic feathers in order to defy the laws of nature?" What strikes me about  Inception  is that a huge amount of the dialogue consists of someone telling you what the rules are.  It creates a world with a million miracles and has a magic feather for every single one of them.   For some of Nolan's films, this actually works in their favor.  Most them use crosscutting liberally, but the events they cut between are not always happening simultaneously and don't alway...

I write about this movie because it solidifies the point that a documentary being informative means little on its own.  This is a very informative documentary.  I learned about the origins of terriers as a dog breed.  I learned about the danger of parasites when encountering rats.  I learned about the intelligent behavior of rats.  I learned about the Karni Mata Temple in India.   Worst shit I've ever seen. Loud horror-movie music and disgusting sound effects play incessantly over scene after scene of dramatic camerawork.  The problem isn't that this is unpleasant, but that it betrays a desperate desire to manipulate you, and it can't even do that because it's too repetitive and obvious.  It succeeds only in annoying you.  Apparently, no more than a single idea ever passed through the head of anyone whose job it was to try to get a rise out of the audience. The movie despises rats, and I question the perceptiveness of anyone who disagre...

I realized some time in June that I had just forgotten to make this post.  I was too busy until now to actually finish it.  Anyway, there are other movies I watched last year that were as good as these, but I either already wrote about them somewhere or I couldn't write about them briefly.  Still, several of these are among the best movies I've seen, period. Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)  One of the most perfectly constructed neo-noirs I've seen, both in how its plot unfolds and in how we hope the genre will make us feel.  It follows through on almost every story beat in a way that is surprising at first but looks inevitable in retrospect.  Denzel Washington's character, Easy, is as capable and hard-boiled as any noir lead, but his experiences of loss, frustration, and menace are palpable.  Like in many noirs, the world of this film is largely ruled by property and violence, but there are moments when it seems like the characters can aspire for more th...

The film famously opens with a 7-minute shot of cows.  They emerge from a barn, apparently unattended, and the camera slowly travels with them as they walk to the left.  As the camera moves, it comes across some dilapidated, abandoned buildings.  The neutral, simple image of animals minding their own business is eclipsed by the paranoia and discomfort that come from seeing ruined signs of human life.  These feelings are constant throughout the film's 450 minutes, even in its more humorous moments.   The film takes place mainly on a remote, failed collective farm village in Hungary.  The characters have little to do in their daily lives besides take long walks in the mud through an eternal rain.  Each of the characters is, at best, a thoroughly mediocre person.  They are irrational, callous, and deceitful.  Even their dreams are unpleasant.  The one character who stands out is the shady and ambitious Irimiás, who expresses thorough ...