Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Well, I've been felled by gad's own horrible cold for the past week+, weathering (or taking it on a trip to) a weekend in Kingston, NY with same, perhaps worsening, and canceling wine-related events on weekday nights of a formerly promising time. This week's been dire.
However, this has afforded me nose-blowing evenings in which to watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Anomalisa."
The former—which I saw on release, but didn't cotton to—turns out to be a kind of chef d'oeuvre*. The kinetic Gondry thing fused with the cerebral-cum-sentimental Kaufman thing to produce a motherfucking rhapsody. With broken, tamped yet vivid Jim Carrey and purely beautiful yet unstrung Kate Winslet doing fine work. Dunno. I sobbed my eyes out.
The latter I just finished watching. At first I hated it and was bored. Then I thrilled to the vocal delivery of the main actors (including Tom Noonan as "everyone else"). It's a weird synthetic thing, but so much more successful than "Being John Malkovich" (which, granted, I haven't seen since back when it came out). I feel as though it's a schematic setup that was made more living by the actors behind it. The animation was extremely disconcerting**, but in the end compelling.
Thoughts?
* "Je ne sais pas si c'est une comédie ou une tragédie mais en tout cas c'est un chef-d'oeuvre." Brialy in "Une femme est une femme"
** Given the way we look at people. Here, the people are foreshortened (and that's side-stepping the main conceit of most of them looking the same), which makes us recoil a bit. I don't know if we ever get used to it; it takes two thirds of the film to stop being jarred by that, though we are, which perhaps is a triumph on the part of the filmmakers?
However, this has afforded me nose-blowing evenings in which to watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Anomalisa."
The former—which I saw on release, but didn't cotton to—turns out to be a kind of chef d'oeuvre*. The kinetic Gondry thing fused with the cerebral-cum-sentimental Kaufman thing to produce a motherfucking rhapsody. With broken, tamped yet vivid Jim Carrey and purely beautiful yet unstrung Kate Winslet doing fine work. Dunno. I sobbed my eyes out.
The latter I just finished watching. At first I hated it and was bored. Then I thrilled to the vocal delivery of the main actors (including Tom Noonan as "everyone else"). It's a weird synthetic thing, but so much more successful than "Being John Malkovich" (which, granted, I haven't seen since back when it came out). I feel as though it's a schematic setup that was made more living by the actors behind it. The animation was extremely disconcerting**, but in the end compelling.
Thoughts?
* "Je ne sais pas si c'est une comédie ou une tragédie mais en tout cas c'est un chef-d'oeuvre." Brialy in "Une femme est une femme"
** Given the way we look at people. Here, the people are foreshortened (and that's side-stepping the main conceit of most of them looking the same), which makes us recoil a bit. I don't know if we ever get used to it; it takes two thirds of the film to stop being jarred by that, though we are, which perhaps is a triumph on the part of the filmmakers?