Santo vs. the Vampire Women

1962 pelicula de lucha libre

Rating: 20/20 (see the "el Santo" rule, page 583 of the shane-movies handbook)

Plot: Some vampire women wake up in a dusty castle that nobody seems to know about. It's time to grab the daughter of a professor, apparently because the devil needs her for something. They wake up three vampire wrestlers, turn into bats, and fly off to simultaneously ruin a party and kidnap the daughter. Only El Santo can save the day!

This black and white entry in the Santo series is as good as the others I've seen, meaning it's one of the greatest films ever made. This one has some atmosphere, some really cheesy special effects (the bats are especially bad), and the regular arsenal of silly fight scenes, some which go on far too long. During a key vampire wrestler v. Santo in the ring scene, Santo's mask is nearly removed. Instead, Santo whips off his opponent's mask in what is arguably one of the greatest moments in movie history. I also really like how the vampire wrestlers fighting strategy is to rush behind their victims and karate chop their backs. Lots of fun. The version I watched was dubbed which, of course, added to the joy. I don't know if this one is as good as the ones with the Blue Demon, but if you're jonesing for a movie with Mexican wrestlers and vampire women, this will hit the spot. Wish me luck finding Santo vs. the Martian Invasion.

Reflections in a Golden Eye

1967 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Captain Penderton lives with his wife Leonora at an army base. The captain is a closet homosexual and a weak man. Leonora emasculates him in public and cheats on him with friend and neighbor Major Langdon, a man married to Alison, a crazy woman who cut her own nipples off with garden shears. Alison threatens to divorce Langdon and run off to live on a shrimp boat with Anacleto, her effeminate Vietnamese helper with a fondness for watercolor and prancing. Meanwhile, Private Williams spies on the Pendertons, watching their arguments from their yard through open windows and even entering the house at night to watch Leonora sleep and fondle her lingerie. They all ride horses, but Williams does it in the nude and Penderton can't stay on the horse. There. I think I covered everything.

"Have you ever been collared and dragged out into the street and thrashed by a naked woman?"

This is a really strange movie. At times, I thought it was a tongue-in-cheek comedy. The performances (especially Zorro David as Anacleto and some of Brando's at times unintelligible dialogue) are odd, and the characters all seem tortured by their own dark secrets and quirks. Elizabeth Taylor, good here as Leonora, is probably the most normal character, but all the others seem completely off. Private Williams, in fact, I think goes through the entire movie without speaking, and the Lady Godiva horse rides aren't exactly normal. Brando's character keeps a spoon for sentimental purposes. And of course there's the woman who cut her nipples off. I found this movie to be impenetrable after one viewing. What's going on here? Something about sexual repression? Does Williams even exist or does he just represent Penderton's past? Or both? The movie's quite the riddle. It's definitely one of those movies where you feel like you're missing a bunch of pieces to the puzzle, things that you can't possibly understand because you weren't with the characters before the movie started. It's also one of those movies where what happens seems more important on a symbolic level instead of a literal level. But perhaps I'm reading too much into things. I liked all the performances in this but was especially impressed with Brian Keith as Langdon and even more especially impressed with Zorro David. It's an odd role for Brando who has to balance this tough guy side with this really vulnerable side, but it's a strong, appropriately restrained performance. The movie's also shot very well, a lot of it with a golden tint that sort of makes things unnerving after a while. And you almost have to give a bonus point here for a shot of Elizabeth Taylor's bum. Shut up! It is too her! A challenging but entertaining movie.

A Larst recommendation.

A King in New York

1957 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Following a revolution in his European country, King Shadhov retreats to New York. He's got ideas about making the world a better place with atomic energy, but he finds himself penniless after his trusted confidante flees with everything he brought to America. Fortunately, he's tricked into attending a dinner party that turns out to be a sort of reality show, and companies are all of a sudden willing to pay him thousands of dollars to use his dickfarts to sell products. At some point, he meets the son of communist parents and winds up having to defend himself against charges of being a communist.

This really takes its time getting anywhere, and once it does, you almost wish it hadn't. You could never accuse Chaplin of being too subtle, so the political stuff in this, especially with what was going on with Chaplin and America, isn't surprising at all. What was surprising to me was that there were actually some funny moments in this one. There's some fun satirical stuff here about commercialism, movies, and fame in America. This is also worth seeing because it showcases Chaplin's acting chops. I'm always surprised to see Chaplin not overdo things in this later films. It's not Monsieur Verdoux or the earlier silent classics, but I liked it better than Limelight.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

2009 stop-animated funk

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20; Abbey: 19/20; Sophie: 20/20)

Plot: The title fox reluctantly settles down, retiring from chicken thieving and getting a job as a newspaper man to appease his pregnant wife, Mrs. Fox. Seven years later, his itch needs scratching, and he moves the family into a tree with a view of the farms of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean and begins plotting a final triple-header job. He and friend Badger get some bandit hats and pull off the jobs. This ticks off the three farmers who seek revenge.

"That's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey!"

Lots of biases at play here: 1) It's a Wes Anderson movie. 2) It's based on a Roald Dahl book. 3) It's stop-motion animation. 4) I saw it on the big screen. But at least with the first three, it's a menage trois made in heaven. I always think Anderson's movies are refreshing, and I usually find stop-motion stuff refreshing, too. Combine the two, with Dahl's talking animal characters, and you've got something that's downright whimsical. Petey, one of the farmer's personal banjo players and almost a completely useless character, is my favorite character (voiced by Jarvis Cocker), but there isn't a character in this thing that isn't great. I thought the three farmers were really funny, but the majority of the screen time is talking animals. And I love when a cartoon has talking animals that are so human. Great voice acting, too, with a lot of Anderson regulars. The animation is spectacular although intentionally a little low-fi. There are lots of "How are they even pulling that off?" effects, and lots of times when there's an amazing amount of movement happening on the screen at once. This has a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, and although it almost goes a bit too far in the end, this is the type of movie that I'd love to watch again and again. Downright whimsical!

2009 seems like an incredible year for animated movies. And I've not even seen Ponyo, Mary and Max, or A Town Called Panic yet.

Fail-Safe

1964 cold war drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: American planes armed with two nuclear bombs each are heading for Moscow. Since it's all a mistake, the American war machine does everything it can to stop them. The Russians aren't too happy about the whole thing and threaten to send their newest weapon of mass destruction, a device called The Dickfart Machine, to retaliate. President Henry Fonda gets a gas mask.

Interesting that this was released so close to the release of Dr. Strangelove, even by the same studio. This is actually a whole lot like Strangelove, only without all the penis jokes. This movie gets all the little things right. There's some great dialogue delivered by great actors. I like Fonda as our president, but everybody in this was solid. There's a realism to the performances, and although I'm almost positive there are some plot holes or at least some far-fetched scenarios in this thing, the characters' calm tension sucks you in and makes it all seem plausible. I really like how this is shot, too. Close-ups and long shots used to show characters emotionally attached or distant from the unfolding dilemma; the lighting, or in most cases a lack of traditional movie lighting; sly camera work (I especially like how the camera moves from character to character during some exchanges); and a complete lack of music help add to the tension. This ends in a shocking way, driving home a point that remains relevant even after the Cold War. That the movie can be shocking despite keeping all the "action" off-screen is part of what makes it great. The focus is on the characters making impossibly tough decisions, deepening the drama and tragedy. I also like the goofiness and cheapness of the technology they were using. There was something about that green screen with all those little dots and triangles that helped make the whole thing terrifying. This really cool flick was recommended by Cory.

Two things I didn't really get though: the entire conversation between Walter Matthau's character and the woman he slaps and the bullfighting dream/reference to bullfighting dream that bookend the film. The latter, I suppose, I understand, but I'm not sure if I liked it very much.

Russian Ark

2002 trip through a museum

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A guy stumbles awake at the Winter Palace of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. I think he's a ghost. Anyway, nobody seems to be able to see him, but he encounters a Frenchman in black who can and they wander about meeting historical figures and looking at pretty pictures.

Favorite scene: The Frenchman leaves a room. The door closes behind him, and he just stands there for a moment. The door opens slightly, and a guy's head and shoulders peek out. He blows a raspberry at the Frenchman who immediately blows one back. Then, the guy's head and shoulders go back into the room, and the door closes.

This movie is boring. Maybe even really boring. Part of the trouble was probably that I don't know anything at all about Russian history. I recognized some names (i.e. Catherine the Great), but those names might as well have been anything (Danny Doppleheimer, Lance Bickenstaff, Corrina Peabody, etc.)because they didn't mean anything to me. Despite the movie's relatively short running time (just a bit over 90 minutes), I had to watch this in two installments. My son couldn't make it through fifteen minutes. Having said that, this is a remarkable achievement, and the more I think about the amount of work that had to have gone into this production, the more I'm impressed. The film's famous for being the first film that is an uninterrupted single shot, the camera flowing through a myriad of rooms occupied by seemingly thousands of actors and actresses. The effect is dreamy, hypnotic, and exceptionally beautiful. There's artwork--naked people statues, paintings--and the architecture of this palace is artistic itself. Most of the time, the screen is stuffed with beauty, and I found my eyes wandering from corner to corner of my too-tiny television to take it all in. Technically, it's just an amazing long take. If one of these thousands of people screws up, everybody has to get back in their places and the whole shoot starts over again. And even though this movie was shot in 96 minutes or so, it actually involved four years in preparation, practice, and positioning. When I think about how much work had to go into things like lighting, I'm just amazed. Truly an ambitious and extraordinary feat. The guy who plays the Frenchman, Sergei Dontsov, is especially good, and I loved how the camera would drift over a wall or a painting or thousands of dancing people and then settle on the guy just standing there waiting. Russian Ark is also interesting because you get a first-person point of view. You borrow the anonymous narrator's eyes for 90 minutes which puts you right in this museum. And you don't even have to pay to get in! I wonder if there are any other first-person movies like this. Is anybody even reading this far? This is too dull, too haunting, too historically dense, and too Russian to appeal to most folk, but there's really something fascinating about the whole thing. It absorbs you.

I looked it up, by the way. The finished film was actually the fourth take. The first three had to be stopped because of technical difficulties.

Big Nothing

2006 black comedy

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: Ross has lost his job as a teacher and is looking for a job to help support his police officer wife and his daughter. He gets a job at a call center but is fired before he finishes a single day of work. But he does meet Gus, a scam artist who has an idea to extract thousands of dollars from a reverend. Gus's girlfriend also helps out. Things don't go as planned, however, and the night spirals out of control.

You know how some movies trudge along and don't seem to go anywhere? Big Nothing is exactly the opposite of that. This movie goes everywhere, and that's not really a good thing. The pace is so quick that you have no time to catch a breath, and although there are some fun twists and turns along the way, most of this movie is just relentlessly stupid. There's a fifteen minute chunk of this movie that is really good. The timing between twists and the humor work. Beyond that, this is a mess, the movie falling to pieces like a radio-controlled airplane that you spent an hour putting together and finally flew for the first time with things going well at first until you decided to do a few barrel rolls and fancy maneuvering through the monkey bars and watched in dismay while the toy his a guy holding a picket sign and burst into flames. It's like a Coen brothers' movie without a script, almost to the point where I think somebody said, "Hey, I've got an idea. People like those Coen brothers. Let's make us a Coen brother movie!" I liked Simon Pegg and Jon Polito in this movie, but I didn't buy anything that David Schwimmer was doing. He's not really the greatest of actors, is he? The music in this movie also really annoyed me.

Orphan

2009 piece of shit

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Kate and husband John decide to adopt a highly intelligent and artistic nine-year-old Russian orphan. Kate, a recovering alcoholic, is trying to get over nearly accidentally killing one of her two biological children and a miscarriage. Things are going swimmingly until Esther, the family's new addition, begins misbehaving. She forms an attachment to John but has trouble getting along with her new mom who wonders if she might be evil. Bad stuff happens. And there's nothing more horrifying, ladies and gentlemen, than when bad stuff happens in a bad movie.

This is a Macaulay Culkin away from being The Good Son. There's also a bit of The Omen in here. In fact, the whole thing is derivative, entirely predictable in its unpredictability, and offensively bad filmmaking. You know that horror movie cliche where the filmmaker dicks around with you, letting you follow a character who is anxious or nervous and then suddenly jabbing you with a shockingly loud musical note or a noise and causing you to jump because the character has seen something scary before revealing that the only scary thing in the room is something innocent like a kitty or a child with a lollipop? If you like that, you'll love Orphan because that's a trick the director uses about ninety times. It's actually almost the entire movie. You also get some really terrible child acting, including a title character who can't remember if she's Russian or not, and several plot points that just don't make any sense whatsoever. Seriously, some of the decisions these characters make are just bewildering. There's a big big twist in this movie. Really, there had to be a big big twist because without a big big twist, nobody would care to sit through this one. But the big big twist is so stupid, crossing the line from "shocking" into "What the hell?" and forcing me, whether fair or not, to really want to kick M. Night Shyamalan right in the head. It was offensive more than anything else, an attempt to trick a reaction out of people. And that's the biggest problem with Orphan--it substitutes good storytelling, realistic character development, and genuine horror and suspense for manipulative movie cliches and lazy trickery and dickery. Trickery, dickery, dock. I really hate this movie, and I hope it's my least enjoyable movie watching experience of the year.

Themroc

1973 caveman movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Themroc lives a monotonous life in an apartment with his mother and sister. He leaves for work, putting on yellow coveralls and painting a fence black while men in white coveralls paint the same fence white. One day, he sees something he's not supposed to--his boss and secretary getting it on--and he is fired. He walks home, growling at a few trains along the way. Themroc then rebels against society, using a sledgehammer to knock a giant hole in his wall, throwing everything he owns out that hole, and having sexual relations with his sister. When his neighbors are inspired to do the same, police come in riot gear to try to ruin their fun.

Michel Piccoli makes such a good caveman. He's in a handful of Bunuel films, yet this is still likely his oddest role. It really is a good performance, expression without words, visceral and with more emotional depth than you'd guess for a character who does little more than grunt. I'm not sure exactly what they're trying to say in this movie, but I think it would appeal to anarchists. It's shot in an almost anarchic style, filthy and free. Things got a bit repetitious after a while as the grunting and almost no plot started to feel less unique and more of the same stuff I'd been watching for an hour and a half. Since there's no dialogue in the movie unless you count guttural caveman grunts, so obviously, this is not a movie for everybody. I did find some of it very funny, and if you're the type of cinephile who can tolerate this sort of thing, I recommend you take a trip to Blockbuster and grab a copy. It'll be right between Them! and The Mr. O. Chronicles.

Drag Me to Hell

2009 horror-comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Christine the bank loan officer has a nice job, a future promotion, and a loving boyfriend. One day, an old woman with a creepy eye tries to get a third mortgage extension, and Christine, trying to impress the boss, turns her down. The old woman puts a curse on Christine who, after seeking the professional advice from a psychic, finds out that she's going to be dragged to hell in three days. Oh, snap!

This roller coaster ride of a movie made me feel like I did when I watched and loved Evil Dead II as a kid. I laughed, jumped a little, laughed again, and sat in awe of Raimi's technical wizardry and childish creativity. Sam Raimi's that type of director who probably giggles uncontrollably while he works on his movies in the editing room. Drag Me to Hell is stuffed with gimmicks, has a dopey story, and is probably guilty of using those gimmicks to hide the dopey story. But it's also about as funny as a horror movie can be and as scary as a comedy can be and one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a long time. Stylistic touches (askew cameras and quick zooms) and his skewed Stooges and Looney Tunes inspired dark humor are reminiscent of the Evil Dead trilogy although Raimi's Spidey powers allow for the finished product to look a lot more polished. It certainly is fun. The sound effects are also a lot of fun. Things clang when they're not supposed to clang and swish when there's no logical reason for swishing so that the film is aurally as adventurous and exaggerated as it is visually. There were two scenes I had to rewind to see a second time, and an early fight scene in a parking garage is arguably the greatest fight scene in movie history. I'm not even kidding. I can't remember seeing anything this completely ridiculous, a movie that so frequently had me shaking my head and saying, "This is insanity." I mean that as a compliment, of course. I definitely enjoyed this more than any Spiderman movie and can happily say that this makes up for the waste of time that Spiderman 3 was.

The Quiet Man

1952 wife-beating epic

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Following the death of an opponent and his retirement from boxing, John Wayne O'Leary returns from America to his Ireland birthplace. He purchases the old family property and falls in love with the redheaded neighbor Mary Kate O'Mulligan, apparently because she's the first woman he sees and looks like the type of woman who would be fun to beat the crap out of. Her brother, Hefty O'Topheavy, doesn't like John Wayne O'Leary, ostensibly because of his goofy hat, and does everything he can to keep the two apart.

Is there really enough story here for a complete movie? I was never all that interested in the romance. In fact, I had no interest in either John Wayne or Maureen O'Hara's characters at all and thought the peripheral characters, really in there only to add local color, were much more interesting. The main conflict, muddled by Irish courting customs that never made much sense to me, also really wasn't that interesting. The story clunks along, eventually building to a difficult-to-watch twenty minute scene glorifying spousal abuse which is immediately followed by a preposterous twenty minute scene in which Wayne and the brother engage in awkwardly old-timey fisticuffs. In the end, it all seems like a really long joke. John Wayne as a serious actor could be considered kind of a joke, too. This story and his character depend far too much on his acting ability, and he really have enough range to make a character that seems real. The real star of the show is probably Ireland's countryside, filmed beautifully with lovely splashes of vivid color. The movie's worth watching for Ireland alone probably, but I also really liked the odd assortment of minor characters and the music in The Quiet Man.

This was another Cory recommendation.

The Unholy Three

1925 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A ventriloquist, a strong man, and a little person break free from a side show to live a life of crime. They come up with an ingenious plan involving cross-dressing, a giant monkey, and parrots. When a couple things don't go according to plan, the trio struggle to keep things together.

Let's go over this again. There's a cross-dressing ventriloquist, a strong man, and a little person disguised as a baby using parrots to rob people? And there's a giant killer monkey and a puppet? I'm in! This is a very strange film for the mid-20s, not surprising I suppose since it's a Tod Browning production with the always odd-looking Lon Chaney, an actor who didn't exactly avoid bizarre roles. Actually, it's not a great movie, more like an extremely silly one, but there are so many ideas straight from left field, that it's hard not to like the thing. I always enjoy Chaney, and he's good here playing a criminal with too much heart. I could have probably played a ventriloquist in a movie from this time period though. The little person (Harry Earles, playing a character named Tweedledee) is also really good, expertly transitioning from a mean little criminal to a baby and vice versa. There are some funny camera effects used to make the monkey seem gigantic and deadly, really succeeding only in making the monkey appear to change sizes from scene to scene. There's also a really goofy courtroom scene that leads to a completely unbelievable ending. Still, this is a silent oddball that is worth checking out.

Predator

1987 science fiction action mayhem

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Some tough guys, led by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is tricked by Carl Weathers into venturing into the South American jungle to find captured soldiers. While there, a scary alien thing hunts them one by one and strips them of their skin. Apparently it's a hobby.

I wonder if I'm the only person who can't watch Carl Weathers in this without inserting the line "You got yourself a stew goin'" after everything that he says.

"We pick up their trail at the chopper, run 'em down, grab those hostages and bounce back across the border before anybody knows we were there. And you got yourself a stew goin'!"

"Goddamn jackpot. We finally got those bastards. We got 'em. And we've got ourselves a stew goin'!"

Arnold: "Bleed, bastard. Bleed."
Carl Weathers: "And you've got yourself a stew goin'!"

It's really amazing how many of the actors in this ended up with a political career. Everybody knows that Schwarzenegger became the governor of California, and almost everybody knows that Jesse "The Body" Ventura became governor of Minnesota. But did you know that Bill Duke (Mac) later became a congressman in New York? Or that Richard Chaves (Poncho) was a senator for seven and a half days before being ejected from his seat due to a sex scandal involving a mollusk? Sonny Landham (Billy) became the mayor of Sugar Tit, South Carolina, and R.G. Armstrong was elected the president of Belarus. The Predator himself, a guy named Kevin Peter Hall, could have retired after a terrifically versatile career playing a mutant bear, an alien, a monster, another alien, another monster, another mutant bear, a mutant alien, a mutant monster, a mutant, a regular bear, and Harry from Harry and the Hendersons to become President of the United States, but he sadly passed away in the early 90s and never got the chance. This movie is pretty straightforward. You get exactly what you figured you'd get--a ton of explosions, some inexplicable; some stock characters; a fistful of Arnold one-liners ("Stick around."); action scenes piled on top of action scenes; some pretty good special effects; and a wafer-thin plot. Most of the movie looks like the director just said, "Hey, fellas, why don't you wander around the jungle here for a few hours. We'll film you and then pull out the best stuff to use in the movie." I do really like the jungle imagery in this. It's filmed really well. Some of the action sequences are fine; others make little-to-no sense. The Predator's look is cartoony whenever he's in his camouflage state but effectively menacing when he's not. The climactic fight scene between Arnold and the alien, a fight scene you know is going to happen before you pop the dvd in the machine, is actually kind of boring.

And I thought of a new movie idea, a screenplay I'm going to write and present to Arnold himself to get him back on the silver screen. The movie poster above actually inspired me because it almost looks like the movie is called Schwarzenegger. My movie, titled Schwarzenegger! (note the punctuation) will have Arnold playing himself with all the things and people he's ever beaten up or killed coming back to get their revenge. At the end of my movie (spoiler alert!), Sinbad is going to kill him. How badass is that going to be?

Jour de Fete

1949 French comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Francois the postman delivers mail via bicycle in a quiet French town as its inhabitants prepare for the arrival of the annual fair. When he sees a short film at the cinema on America postmen, he envies their speed and reputation and becomes determined to match their rapidity.

It's shame this isn't readily available, and I'm surprised this wasn't Criterionized before the inferior Trafic. This is Tati's first film, before M. Hulot came along, and like his later and better known projects, this is a charming and quiet look at the humor of the everyday lives of everyday people, heavily inspired by silent slapstick classics and funny enough to force a few grins. Actually, I don't see how it's possible for anybody to watch this movie without having a goofy grin on his face from beginning to end. There's lots of great visual humor (a runaway bike, a ringing church bell, a romantic movie advertisement, a drunken bike ride, a race) and a lot more dialogue than in his other movies. Not that the dialogue adds much. The entire movie feels like a subplot filled with subplots, miniature stories without beginnings or endings that give the town and its people character. Unsurprisingly, there's a humorous criticism of a rapidly modernizing society and a gentle reminder about the importance of slowing down. I would some day like to live in a small town that has a hunchbacked old lady who walks around with a goat and narrates everybody's activities. This movie also made me want to own chickens. Add that to the shane-movies blog Christmas wish list with those other things I asked for.

Songs from the Second Floor

2000 black comedy

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: Tired pale souls wander in the solitude of a crowded purgatory.

I searched and searched for this about six years ago, finally found and watched it, and was kind of disappointed. Roy Andersson, not exactly a prolific filmmaker, has a follow-up which has just found its way onto dvd, so I thought it would be a good time to give this a second chance. I'm really glad I did because it really connected this time. There's a fragmented narrative in here--something about a corporation going out of business, a traffic jam, a guy burning down his furniture store for the insurance money, stuff that wouldn't be out of place in a Monty Python production--but the story doesn't matter. This one is all about the images, and Andersson's got the sort of eye that make a film survive entirely on images. The camera is static, moving (I think) during only one scene, and you really get the sense that you're watching a photograph filled with people and objects who decided to break the laws of photography and move around a little bit. They're photographs from incomplete dreams, stuffed with surreal imagery like multiple crucifixes, magician tricks gone wrong, scurrying rats, former generals trapped in cribs, the wandering dead, and group flagellation. The dialogue's occasionally dippy, and it'd be hard to argue with somebody who thinks the drab colors give this a monochromatically faded and depressing appearance, but there's something in every single scene that fascinates, whether it's because it cleverly connects to another scene, contains complex choreography with things or characters moving in the background, has interesting geometry and angles (lots of really long streets and hallways, sets actually constructed in a studio), or is just too bizarre to not pay attention to. One observation: the characters' interactions are so completely unnatural (I'm not sure there's one conversation with characters who are facing each other) that it's at least depressing and almost unnerving. That's one of the many aspects of this that make it not very easy and not for everybody, but it's a unique work of art with some heavy philosophy that was not only universally relevant at the beginning of the millennium but is actually even more relevant today. I look forward to seeing You, the Living, apparently the second piece of an unfinished trilogy. My favorite scene is the one in which the main character (or the closest thing to a main character this has) is introduced on a subway. It's a moment that was simultaneously beautiful and hilarious, just like all of the world's best things.