Change Your Image
sean-gilbertson
Reviews
Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel (2021)
Shameless
This show is exploitive and crass. A sad story in a sad place is warped into a ersatz mystery through the words of random YouTubers that run the gamut from simple opportunists to weird stalkers.
It's telling that a small percentage of the content in this show is from investigators and experts. If you only heard from them, you'd know this is simply a story about mental health issues ill-treated.
Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999)
Boring and plodding
Most of the stories in this are saccharine and boring. The Goofy / Max one is the worst of them - a too-long story of doubt in which the characters do nothing and make no personal journey and are rewarded with a split-second afterthought of a sighting of a Santa who apparently keeps grudges.
Christmas Everlasting (2018)
That quilt though
This was a bad movie and I have to say even though there was a lot of bokeh especially at the end, it wasn't especially Christmasy.
Aziz Ansari: Right Now (2019)
Degrading
This inappropriately intimate special starts with Aziz Ansari reciting his undigested thought and emotions about the rape accusation against him in an increasingly quiet whisper. In psychology there's something called a 'mismatched affect': a difference in the seriousness of a conversation and the way in which someone participates in the conversation. It usually means you're avoiding truly dealing with the topic of the conversation. Like smiling while you're crying about a breakup, or whispering while you're talking about being accused of rape.
The routine in this special goes between admirable intellectualization and what seems to be a reenactment of the trauma Aziz has gone through. At one point Aziz even gaslights the audience and blames them for believing the lie. It's normal to trust someone, especially when they open up their innermost mess to you. It's dysfunctional to lie to people. This deception is the apex of a degrading experience - one that leaves the audience and the storyteller worse off. If the thesis of this presentation is that we should all be more cynical and trust people less, then the goal may have been achieved for some watchers, but I doubt Aziz truly wants to live in that world.
There's a misconception out there that you need to talk about every detail of every negative thing that happens to you in order to get over them. All you really have to do is let the feelings you're avoiding or wishing away 'in' - let yourself feel them. Aziz is so close to synthesizing what happened to him into his greater life narrative. I really hope he's able to find peace. And then we'll have some really inspiring comedy.
You've Got Mail (1998)
Great, even (especially) today
You could make a case that this is a "better" movie than Sleepless in Seattle. I know how that sounds - because I read it recently before rewatching it, and went from scoffing to agreement.
Sleepless in Seattle is poetry; a dream, with a warm, easy answer that floats off the breeze and lands on your heart. You've Got Mail is full of themes that lack easy answers.
This movie is about perspectives - on people, on life, on love. The characters start off in one perspective, shift to another, and then have the final lens twisted into clarity at the end. Meg Ryan hates and loves the same man, with the fascinating twist that she doesn't know they're the same person. How can she love and hate the same man? It's a confounding question. What is the answer? You have to figure it out for yourself as you watch.
What if the answer is to not need an answer? What if you can love someone without wanting to change them to suit how you want to feel about them? Meg Ryan has the latter but only online. In her off-screen life she has nothing but despair and sees nothing but threats and confrontation. But the "real" life is, well, real. Meg Ryan tried inviting the online fantasy into the real world, but he can't show up. Reality shows up but she doesn't recognize it. She doesn't see the love in herself and in the world even though as the audience we do - we have that perspective.
The characters travel a lot in Sleepless in Seattle, but the real journeys are in You've Got Mail.
The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
An emotional symphony
This show brings a life and meaning into spooks and ghosts that really raises the bar for all horror. By the end of the show you'll feel like you've just traveled through the lives of an entire family in a very real, emotional sense, but also just a straight up entertaining way - and this story is enhanced by the horror elements rather than being cheapened by it. Even when there's a jump scare, there's a reason for it. In fact, at one point there was a jump scare that completely echoed my frustration with what the characters on screen were doing, and it was even true to the story of the thing doing the jump-scaring.
Genre redefining. Emotionally fulfilling. Cathartic. Life affirming. A great show.
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Chill vibe
This is a less intense, more fun superhero movie. It's pretty good - not the best of all of the Marvel movies, but a very welcome addition. The bad guys aren't that bad, the stakes aren't world-ending. And the ending is maybe the best of all of these movies.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
A detriment
A movie that ends just as an actually interesting story could have happened.
If art is something that's evocative or carries meaning, what is the value of this film?
What meaning is there? It can't be karma because that's not how the real world works. Yet we're expected to accept the intractability of this situation and that the only resolution is what's printed on the tin at the beginning of the second act.
What emotions are evoked? Revulsion? Sadness? Disgust? This is where the value of the film is meant to be, and is the problem with a lot of "value" praised by many mainstream critics in lots of movies: something is meant to be valuable purely because it is depressing or terrible or scarring. This is why comedies and children's movies usually don't win Oscars yet they make people very happy - and often carry more long term value!
All the characters speak the same in this movie, because it's an easy, sophomoric, lazy film. It's boring. It's unlikable. It's disgusting. It's insulting.