I really want to live in the kind of economy where I could afford vacations.
I would also like to live in the kind of economy where Diane Duane doesn't need to crowdfund in order not to be evicted and homeless, but here we are, so follow the link. [edit] She has now successfully done so, and along with her husband sends profound thanks to everyone who purchased or donated, but I still do not find it reasonable that she had to.
Last night I watched Winter's Bone (2010), directed by Debra Granik. It looked essential to women in noir, its cast included John Hawkes, I had been meaning to see it for years. It is the kind of film I will have trouble talking about even when I get the time for it, because of how much I loved it: a spare murder ballad of a movie, neither condescending nor romantic, and further proof that neo-noir doesn't need to be defined by a retro style in order to qualify for the genre; it cracks its protagonist's world open, sets her hunting for truth like the title, the cold, intimate, irreducible common denominator beneath debatable flesh and blood. It's about what can and can't be said, by individuals, by families, what can and can't be known. It's not sociological, but it is political in the way that being alive in a society is political. It's beautifully shot. I'd much rather have seen it win Best Picture than The King's Speech, a film I liked very much. The fact that Granik was nominated for co-adapting the screenplay but not for directing the picture demonstrates the depth to which the Academy must have had its head up its ass that year. Looking at Jennifer Lawrence's filmography, I'm not sure anyone has ever again asked her to play as tough and ordinary and original a part as the protagonist of this film; I understand how The Hunger Games happened, but she could have gone from Ree Dolly to Antigone. You can think of Winter's Bone as Sophokles for twenty-first-century America, honestly, and not pretentiously at all. What can you know and live with? What's forgivable and how far should a family carry the weight of what's not? What will you risk your life to see done for the ones you love? The film suggests answers, but it's noir: asking the questions is more important. They change the shape of the world, even when holding it together is all you have ever set out to do.
I would also like to live in the kind of economy where Diane Duane doesn't need to crowdfund in order not to be evicted and homeless, but here we are, so follow the link. [edit] She has now successfully done so, and along with her husband sends profound thanks to everyone who purchased or donated, but I still do not find it reasonable that she had to.
Last night I watched Winter's Bone (2010), directed by Debra Granik. It looked essential to women in noir, its cast included John Hawkes, I had been meaning to see it for years. It is the kind of film I will have trouble talking about even when I get the time for it, because of how much I loved it: a spare murder ballad of a movie, neither condescending nor romantic, and further proof that neo-noir doesn't need to be defined by a retro style in order to qualify for the genre; it cracks its protagonist's world open, sets her hunting for truth like the title, the cold, intimate, irreducible common denominator beneath debatable flesh and blood. It's about what can and can't be said, by individuals, by families, what can and can't be known. It's not sociological, but it is political in the way that being alive in a society is political. It's beautifully shot. I'd much rather have seen it win Best Picture than The King's Speech, a film I liked very much. The fact that Granik was nominated for co-adapting the screenplay but not for directing the picture demonstrates the depth to which the Academy must have had its head up its ass that year. Looking at Jennifer Lawrence's filmography, I'm not sure anyone has ever again asked her to play as tough and ordinary and original a part as the protagonist of this film; I understand how The Hunger Games happened, but she could have gone from Ree Dolly to Antigone. You can think of Winter's Bone as Sophokles for twenty-first-century America, honestly, and not pretentiously at all. What can you know and live with? What's forgivable and how far should a family carry the weight of what's not? What will you risk your life to see done for the ones you love? The film suggests answers, but it's noir: asking the questions is more important. They change the shape of the world, even when holding it together is all you have ever set out to do.
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