Women fighting women, the Elderly Zombie Apocalypse, user interfaces of the truly insane, day drinking vs. thinking, dogs with dementia, a murder-suicide plot and much more. Or not.
Sucker Free City was ahead of its time - seems like nowadays there at least seems to be more opportunities for a show like this to exist vs. in 2024 in the before-fore-fore times of Old Cable
So, I'm about halfway through The New Look and. Wow. Emily Mortimer and Juliette Binoche are every bit as good as well all expect them to be but, is there ANTYHING Ben Mendelsohn can't do? He's a revelation.
Maisie Williams. I loved her work in the Pistol series but in The New Look she's transcendent. Who knew little Arya Stark would pull a Daniel Radcliffe and grow up to have a career that exhibits impeccable taste in choices of roles and deliver performances like this. I can't wait to see what she does next!
The series itself is beautiful and I love learning about history that I didn't really know. The juxtaposition of Juliette Binoche's Coco Chanel and Ben Mendelsohn's Christian Dior works beautifully and it's fascinating to see the famous names of Parisian fashion during the war and how they rebuilt the art and culture of Paris and the demimonde in the post war period. Maisie Williams plays Dior's younger sister Catherine who was a Resistance courier and was captured and spent a couple of years in Ravensbruk Work Camp while being tortured and interrogated and her re-entry into the world following liberation is almost as brutal. Catherine, in a very real sense was Christian Dior's muse.
First off I perked up when I read this: " long-overdue podcast" YES PLEASE!!!! My reels feed I would say is 90 percent cooking videos and yes I do click on them often. You know what I've noticed about the ads, I get a lot of ads for products that I think "What the hell is that" and of course I get baited to click on them. The latest one was a "mouse cord tender" who the heck has a cord on their mouse these days?
Regarding Instagram and digital detox. Extremely amusing story about the Turkish volleyball player! I had read the Atlantic piece where smartphones are destroying kids (end of civilization, essentially), and then I read some pushback on it. Finally, I read this piece, and am beginning to wonder if it might be right:
But then there's the other, more existential argument against phones: We are spending all our free moments with a screen shoved in our faces, mindlessly scrolling for dopamine and ignoring the world around us. Time spent on your phone is bad; time spent doing anything else is good.
This argument I just can't get on board with. I love mindless scrolling; I find it immensely enjoyable. I love flipping through TikTok, browsing tweets, poking around Reddit. I'll pop into the group chat. Maybe if I have some extra time, I'll go to my happy place and watch some movie trailers on YouTube.
I strenuously object to the idea that spending time away from your phone is somehow more virtuous.
On Ripley: for me while first two episodes were painfully slow, albeit beautiful, it took off with episode three. I discovered the novel in the 80s (and have read almost all of her work) and it imprinted itself in my mind as unforgettable. I think this series is the closest to Highsmith's vision (even is Scott if a bit too old for the part, but he pulls it off) as compared to the two previous adaptations (I mean adaptations of the first Ripley novel). The slow pace which initially is a detriment become an asset. I was disappointed in Minghella's version. Couldn't see Damon in any way as an evil sociopath. And for good intentions at the time it was made he made the subtext of Ripley being a closeted gay man rise to the surface and serve as an explanation for some of what he does. The Netflix Ripley puts it back as subtext, gives him back is sexual ambiguity. I just rewatched Purple Noon. It was entertaining but never did what the book and the Netflix series does which is to implicate us in Ripley's crimes, to make us root for him and feel tainted and implicated by our partial--or full--identification with him. That was Highsmith's genius: to lure the reader into sympathizing with sociopaths and various delusional types. I've noticed on social media eg FB that among a lot of smart people I follow this is one of the most divisive series ever. People either love it unabashedly or hate hate hate it.
Sucker Free City was ahead of its time - seems like nowadays there at least seems to be more opportunities for a show like this to exist vs. in 2024 in the before-fore-fore times of Old Cable
So, I'm about halfway through The New Look and. Wow. Emily Mortimer and Juliette Binoche are every bit as good as well all expect them to be but, is there ANTYHING Ben Mendelsohn can't do? He's a revelation.
Maisie Williams. I loved her work in the Pistol series but in The New Look she's transcendent. Who knew little Arya Stark would pull a Daniel Radcliffe and grow up to have a career that exhibits impeccable taste in choices of roles and deliver performances like this. I can't wait to see what she does next!
The series itself is beautiful and I love learning about history that I didn't really know. The juxtaposition of Juliette Binoche's Coco Chanel and Ben Mendelsohn's Christian Dior works beautifully and it's fascinating to see the famous names of Parisian fashion during the war and how they rebuilt the art and culture of Paris and the demimonde in the post war period. Maisie Williams plays Dior's younger sister Catherine who was a Resistance courier and was captured and spent a couple of years in Ravensbruk Work Camp while being tortured and interrogated and her re-entry into the world following liberation is almost as brutal. Catherine, in a very real sense was Christian Dior's muse.
Highly recommend.
First off I perked up when I read this: " long-overdue podcast" YES PLEASE!!!! My reels feed I would say is 90 percent cooking videos and yes I do click on them often. You know what I've noticed about the ads, I get a lot of ads for products that I think "What the hell is that" and of course I get baited to click on them. The latest one was a "mouse cord tender" who the heck has a cord on their mouse these days?
Regarding Instagram and digital detox. Extremely amusing story about the Turkish volleyball player! I had read the Atlantic piece where smartphones are destroying kids (end of civilization, essentially), and then I read some pushback on it. Finally, I read this piece, and am beginning to wonder if it might be right:
But then there's the other, more existential argument against phones: We are spending all our free moments with a screen shoved in our faces, mindlessly scrolling for dopamine and ignoring the world around us. Time spent on your phone is bad; time spent doing anything else is good.
This argument I just can't get on board with. I love mindless scrolling; I find it immensely enjoyable. I love flipping through TikTok, browsing tweets, poking around Reddit. I'll pop into the group chat. Maybe if I have some extra time, I'll go to my happy place and watch some movie trailers on YouTube.
I strenuously object to the idea that spending time away from your phone is somehow more virtuous.
https://www.businessinsider.com/i-love-my-smartphone-use-more-not-less-iphone-why-2024-4?utm_source=pocket_saves
On Ripley: for me while first two episodes were painfully slow, albeit beautiful, it took off with episode three. I discovered the novel in the 80s (and have read almost all of her work) and it imprinted itself in my mind as unforgettable. I think this series is the closest to Highsmith's vision (even is Scott if a bit too old for the part, but he pulls it off) as compared to the two previous adaptations (I mean adaptations of the first Ripley novel). The slow pace which initially is a detriment become an asset. I was disappointed in Minghella's version. Couldn't see Damon in any way as an evil sociopath. And for good intentions at the time it was made he made the subtext of Ripley being a closeted gay man rise to the surface and serve as an explanation for some of what he does. The Netflix Ripley puts it back as subtext, gives him back is sexual ambiguity. I just rewatched Purple Noon. It was entertaining but never did what the book and the Netflix series does which is to implicate us in Ripley's crimes, to make us root for him and feel tainted and implicated by our partial--or full--identification with him. That was Highsmith's genius: to lure the reader into sympathizing with sociopaths and various delusional types. I've noticed on social media eg FB that among a lot of smart people I follow this is one of the most divisive series ever. People either love it unabashedly or hate hate hate it.
Especially as someone purging stuff and ramping up a move - "Box Stratego" is a win and I'm running with it. That is all.