shit i watched recently XIV
this week; JFK and the first season of the UK version of The Office
JFK
5 / 5
It’s the most agenda-charged film I’ve ever seen. Large scenes play out like a spoken word version of scientific analysis and the dialogue is insanely unrealistic whenever characters are discussing the facts of the assassination. But the point of the movie isn’t to be ‘realistic’. The point of the movie is to create an elaborate back-and-forth story version of the assassination that riles you up and gets you to think about the way American democracy works and how realistically possible a conspiracy could be.
And it does a really strong job of getting you to actually think about the assassination and what could have happened and so on. Stone and co. spend an unhealthily large amount of time simply communicating information about the case and use archive footage whenever it’s possible to do so (or, in many scenes, like fake interrogations and a few cut-ins from the introduction, do an amazing job of faking it). The extraordinarily information packed dialogue also does a good job of giving the movie a real drive and conveying a mood of anger and information overload. It’s the best movie about a conspiracy of any kind I’ve ever seen
It’s a very entertaining and provocative movie, and it ‘works’. it does a far better job of communicating the nature of a real-life national event than Stone’s “World Trade Centre” did that’s for sure
a must-watch for film editors when you consider how much non-conventional technique is being used and how much information is being communicated
my arbitrary grading scale is giving this a 5/5 because it did everything it tried to. horay
THE OFFICE (U.K.), season 1
5/5
It’s a good season. The difference between this and the US Office is that in the UK version, the comedy isn’t as broad. It’s more focused on character, and every ‘joke’ is basically a recognition of how awkward and difficult communication can be and how easily a person can have a delusional idea of themselves. As opposed to the US version where talented comedians are doing some really broad but funny comedy with jokes that work primarily as jokes. It’s nice to know that both versions are good, just for different reasons.
I don’t like to admit it but it’s really well-written. There are lots of times where a joke happens halfway through a conversation and the conversation just keeps on going and going. Gervais and Merchant have obviously thought a lot about how people act when they’re being filmed, it’s a much more important part of this show than it ever was on the U.S. version where the cameramen essentially don’t exist anymore and really never did.
It’s kind of interesting how Tim has a better story arc over this six episode season than Jim has had over the last five years. He tries to change his life and actually makes genuine mistakes. Jim hasn’t tried to change his life in years and never makes mistakes.
