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John Cusack recommended Night of the Living Dead (1968) in Movies (curated)
Karley Sciortino recommended White Noise in Books (curated)
Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated The Butterfly Effect in Books
Oct 10, 2017 (Updated Oct 10, 2017)
Well produced but still completely missing a lot
It's pretty incredible to create a series about the effects of mass porn without mentioning how it actually affects the women in it and around it. Once again we have a very male take on women as a mass commodity, narrowing them down to keywords instead focusing on how the men who make it and are responsible for the consumerism are affected. I thought Jon Ronson would explore this issue, but he skirts around it as an aside. Not his best by far.
Tim Stubbs (9 KP) rated Okja (2017) in Movies
Apr 4, 2018
An alright fantasy film with a serious message.
A lovingly told story with that theme that seems to run through most stories - Good vs. Evil. It's not really an anti- meat eater film but more focusses on how consumerism has made the breeding of animals money orientated. Greed then subverts compassion. Great stints put in by Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhall and Paul Dano.
Kim Gordon recommended Fiskadoro in Books (curated)
John Cusack recommended Dawn of the Dead (1978) in Movies (curated)
Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated Tenth of December in Books
Nov 21, 2017
Dark, disturbing and satirical
This collection of short stories cannot be pigeon-holed. In this oddly disjointed, surreal collection, the underlying issues in modern American culture are loudly explored. George Saunders' breathless writing style floods over terrible realities and hard truths, leaving the reader gasping in its wake.
Tenth of December handles its running themes in a poignant, individual and certainly irreverent way. Narcissistic ideas of charity stems from trivial competition, while sheer denial is shown in the face of true poverty. Generations breed generations, passing on corrupted ideals and traumatic examples. Paedophilia, racism, poverty: nothing is safe from these chastising, powerful stories.
Saunders leaves an expunged, brutally telling view of the American dream. In his futuristic imaginings, he exaggerates the failings of Western consumerism, yet ultimately his message is clear: When one tries to have it all, they're left with nothing.
Tenth of December handles its running themes in a poignant, individual and certainly irreverent way. Narcissistic ideas of charity stems from trivial competition, while sheer denial is shown in the face of true poverty. Generations breed generations, passing on corrupted ideals and traumatic examples. Paedophilia, racism, poverty: nothing is safe from these chastising, powerful stories.
Saunders leaves an expunged, brutally telling view of the American dream. In his futuristic imaginings, he exaggerates the failings of Western consumerism, yet ultimately his message is clear: When one tries to have it all, they're left with nothing.
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Stepford Wives (1975) in Movies
Mar 30, 2018
Bryan Forbes' SF-horror-satire has left a cultural impression out of all proportion to its original box-office success. Nice modern couple leave grimy New York for idyllic small town of Stepford, where everyone seems happy and the women are thoroughly domesticated. What on Earth can the secret of the place be...?
Subtle storytelling and fine performances do a good job of masking the fact that the premise of the story is basically a paranoid fever-dream; oddly, some people interpreted the film as being anti-feminist and actually misogynistic, when it is actually about male objectification of women and fears of the same (maybe also has stuff to say about consumerism too). Perhaps a bit overlong, but the slow aggregation of details adds a lot to a convincingly unsettling atmosphere. An entertaining horror fable.
Subtle storytelling and fine performances do a good job of masking the fact that the premise of the story is basically a paranoid fever-dream; oddly, some people interpreted the film as being anti-feminist and actually misogynistic, when it is actually about male objectification of women and fears of the same (maybe also has stuff to say about consumerism too). Perhaps a bit overlong, but the slow aggregation of details adds a lot to a convincingly unsettling atmosphere. An entertaining horror fable.
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Manchurian Candidate (1962) in Movies
May 8, 2021
Conspiracy thriller. In the early 1960s, war hero Raymond Shaw is feted across America for saving his comrades during the war in Korea - but those comrades are troubled by strange nightmares suggesting something completely different may have happened. Shaw has been conditioned by the Communists to become the perfect assassin, something not even he is aware of, and his new operators are about to send him into action...
Sounds a bit like a Red Scare movie, but surprisingly apolitical: the main villain seems to be more fascist than communist, and even the Russian characters appear to have corrupted by American consumerism. Instead, the focus is more on character, and the damage done to people by their experiences in wartime. An intelligent and cynical movie, well-played for the most part, and with an astonishingly good turn from Angela Lansbury. Inevitably linked in the culture to the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s, but still feels remarkably un-dated.
Sounds a bit like a Red Scare movie, but surprisingly apolitical: the main villain seems to be more fascist than communist, and even the Russian characters appear to have corrupted by American consumerism. Instead, the focus is more on character, and the damage done to people by their experiences in wartime. An intelligent and cynical movie, well-played for the most part, and with an astonishingly good turn from Angela Lansbury. Inevitably linked in the culture to the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s, but still feels remarkably un-dated.