Why I loved Prometheus

Judging from the first reactions to Prometheus I think the PR people did their job a little too well.

There was no way this film was going to meet the expectations those cool trailers and gorgeous posters and viral campaign built up, and exceeding it was out of the question.

Even before I’d read a single review or watched the movie, I was certain a lot of people would react with disappointment. They demanded a new classic, something to immediately bring into the Pantheon of films to be admired, not to say worshipped by film lovers eternally.

What they got was a very good science fiction movie, it was hardly something you easily would label “masterpiece” or “groundbreaking”.

Let the haters feel miserable and cheated. Let them boil in their own stew. I went in with moderate expectations and an open mind and left with a feeling of satisfaction. But then I’m a science fiction fan, not to say geek. To be honest I think it helps quite a bit.

What I got
I don’t usually go into a science fiction movie expecting to penetrate the existential depths like in a Bergman movie, to enjoy smart conversations like in an Allen film or to ponder over socio-psychological dynamics as with Leigh. I don’t expect characters to be multidimensional or develop over time.

• I went to Prometheus to explore some strange new worlds, which is as near as I’ll ever come my childhood dream of becoming a space traveler.
• I went to face truly alien aliens, made with all the effort and skill that the special effects department of today can offer.
• I went to see big things blow up in a big way because it gives perspective on the severity of my malfunctioning washing machine.
• I went to tickle my imagination and get a reminder about all those questions I used to ask back in the days before my life was invaded by trivial adult issues: Why? From Where? Where to? Who else? and What if….?
• Remembering my heroine from the previous Alien films, I also hoped to once again get to see a leading female character who wasn’t there to be a sexy and vulnerable piece of decoration, but who also was capable to take care of herself and other people.

I got all of that and more, including a couple of surprises. I particularly loved the performance of Michael Fassbender as an android and a bad-ass scene with Noomi Rapace which I don’t want to spoil, but you’ll know it when you see it and you won’t forget anytime soon.

It was every bit as spectacular to watch as I possibly could have hoped for. Big, boisterous and unapologetic.

The flaws
And now, before anyone else will bring up the flaws, I’ll do it myself. Because: yes, the film isn’t perfect.

For instance they have hired Guy Pearce, born 1967, for a role where he’s supposed to be about a hundred years old. So they have to put on a ton of make-up, but make-up only can take you so far. It looks like the mask it is and I just don’t understand why they casted him in the first place. Why not just hire an actor in the right age?

But the biggest problems have to do with the script or the cutting. All of a sudden a character appears out of nowhere. Last time you saw him he was as good as dead in an entire different place and you have no idea of how or why he moved. There are glitches, not to say big holes, which makes me suspect that they film was way too long and the rough cutting lead to that entire scenes were removed. Perhaps an extended future version can make it run a bit smoother.

On a few occasions I cringed when I heard people saying things that were unnatural and uncalled for, with the only purpose to inform us about things we already had figured out on our own. Very clumsy exposition.

But there were also examples of the opposite: some parts remained obscure to me. For instance I still don’t know the meaning of the visually gorgeous opening scene and how it fit together with the rest. (I’m pretty sure though that clever people will explain everything on blogs and forums in the months to come and whatever mystery that remains after that will be explained in the sequel.)

A choice
I won’t dwell further on the problems, because there are more than enough of people out there who can point them out. It’s the same with all movies: if you just look close enough, you’ll find plenty.

Eventually the choice is yours. Either you can go to Prometheus, expecting a new Alien classic and become disappointed when it doesn’t deliver that. Or you can go there with an open mind, suspending your disbelief and enjoy the ride of what I think eventually will be the best science fiction movie of 2012.

Finally the eternal question: should you watch it in 3D or 2D? Well, the 3D doesn’t add anything as far as I can tell, but it doesn’t take away anything either. Unlike in the case of John Carter I didn’t notice it and wasn’t annoyed. There is no ugly and distracting viewmaster effect and the characters didn’t look like paper dolls.

In my opinion what matters most is the size of the screen and sadly it seems as if the theatres are doing everything to favor 3D. Given the choice between 3D in a huge cinema and 2D in a shoe box sized cinema, I went for 3D in a big cinema and I recommend you do the same.

Big is beautiful.

Prometheus (Ridley Scott, US, 2012) My rating: 4/5

In defence of the word “pretentious”

Do you know how to best infuriate a film buff? Toss out the word “pretentious” about a critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful movie and wait for the reaction. Nine out of ten will take the bite.

The word is a red flag to many cinephiles, so I’ve consciously tried to avoid it in order not to trigger any bar fights.

Another reason why I don’t use it is that it seems a bit tired and lazy to me to just slap on a single-word label.

Here’s what Mark Kermode wrote about Film Socialisme:

“Filmed in a digital splurge on (among other places) a Mediterranean ocean liner, and divided into three life-threateningly pompous sections (“Things Such As”; “Our Europe”; “Our Humanities”), this patience-testing drivel is the cinematic equivalent of being smacked repeatedly about the head and face with a heavily bound volume of Cahiers du cinéma. When it comes to new clothes, the emperor is not merely naked but running through the streets waving his artistic knackers at the audience and positively daring them to call his bluff. No wonderEurope is collapsing. Boo!”

Actually what he says here is “pretentious”, but since he elaborates a bit on it, it makes for a funnier read.

So what is my defence for this word that I don’t even use myself? Well, it’s got to do with what it represents. To me it’s an example of that there’s an element of healthy questioning in film critique, which you not necessarily see in other art forms.

Short disruption
And here I’m going to make a little detour, sharing a real life story from my time as a reporter. Just stay with me and I promise we’ll get back to the film theme again.

The story goes like this:

I had been sent out to write something about a big art event that was going to take place in a nearby city. A bunch of young artists had been selected to with public financial support do a number of “art installations” as a celebration of the big inland sea Mälaren. There were a number of different projects. For instance I remember that someone was going to row all way around with lights attached to the boat, documenting it with satellite images.

The project that really caught my attention though was that one artist had decided to dump a 1x1x1 meter box with table tennis balls into the sea from the top of a bridge. Every ball would have a stamp on it. And then the balls were supposed to spread out all over the sea, like bottle post, carrying a greeting to whoever would find them.

My first thought when I heard about it was that it didn’t’ sound too well from an environmental point of view. What of the birds? What of the grazing cattle? Those plastic balls wouldn’t break down for years, if ever.

The artist didn’t look to happy at my questions and referred to that he had a permission from the local police administration.

So I turned to the police and asked on what grounds they had allowed this event, which appeared to be a clear case of littering.

The policeman shrugged and smiled to me apologetically.

“How could I question that? It’s art! I don’t understand art. I had to say yes.”

I think it says something about how easily artists often get away nowadays. Regardless of how strange or even bad something is, we don’t think it’s our sake to question it if it’s presented as “art”.

No sacred territory
And this brings us back to the world of movies. There is something much more democratic in the way we regard and discuss films. They’re not sacred territory, there’s no senseless worshipping. Everyone has an opinion. There’s a climate that allows people to speak from their mind and question films that they just don’t understand without being ridiculed for being dumb or uneducated.

If a film is enjoyable only to the film maker and his or her closest friends, there might actually be an issue with the film and not with the viewer. If a film is pompous, taking itself too seriously, someone might stick the word “pretentious” into it as a needle and let out some air.

Of course there is a balance act here. There are movies out there that rightfully should be called out for how full of their own shit they are. But equally there are people who are way too trigger happy crying “pretentious” as soon as a movie requires them to pay a little bit of attention to the film rather than text messaging on their cell phones or chatting with their friends.

I don’t give a free card to anyone. Reviewers shouldn’t hesitate to use the word “pretentious” when they really think it’s warranted. And if others think they’re wrong and find qualities in those so called pretentious movies – well, then they should put up a good argument about it.

Question and be prepared to be questioned in return! Keep the discussions going – with or without the p-word!

Epilogue: So what happened to the balls?
There’s one more question hanging in the air. What happened to the table tennis balls? Were they ever dumped into the sea? They weren’t. After I had whispered in the ear of the local environmental inspector and they’d told the police about how bad idea this was, the “installation” was changed. Thousands of balls were replaced with only one. And this ball was picked up again after it had been dropped from the bridge.

I have no idea in which way this piece of art contributed to the wellbeing of mankind and I hope you’ll forgive me if I even dare to call it “pretentious.”

Spellbound by Moonrise Kingdom

“This must be the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen!”

We had just left the prescreening of Moonrise Kingdom when I heard the exclamation from a girl in the audience.

I frowned. Weird? This? Hardly.

If this was the weirdest movie she’d seen, her ordinary selection of films must be very limited.

I thought back to when I watched Fassbinder’s Querelle in the early 80s. Good grief! I was 16 years old and had a self image that required me to fearlessly dive into what I thought was “deep” and “insightful” books and movies. I had absolutely no idea of what the movie by Fassbinder wanted to convey. But of course I pretended I had. It was a weird, weird movie.

I don’t need to go that far back in time though. As recent as in the beginning of this year I saw a film that I didn’t have a clue of what it was about: Alps, which was made by the same director as did Dogtooth the other year. Utterly incomprehensible. They had the good taste to play the Popcorn in the end, which left me in an upbeat mode, but you don’t need to go to the movies to hear that song. It’s on YouTube in a gazillion versions.

There have been so many movies over the years which have been way stranger than Moonrise Kingdom, movies such as Delicatessen, La grande bouffe, The Cars that ate Paris. Or basically anything by Lars von Trier. They’re all great, but absolutely weird.

Straight forward
Wes Anderson’s latest movie doesn’t belong to this category at all.

Actually I’d say Moonrise Kingdom is a pretty simple, straight forward story. Here’s this boy and girl who live in US in the 60s. They’re about 12-13 years old, come from so-and-so home conditions. They meet, fall in love and run away together.  People go searching for them and there’s rain and thunder and scouts and worried parents, but nothing of this is really weird.

It’s quirky though, definitely. But isn’t that to be expected from this director? And quirky is not the same as weird. Everything seems to be quirky these days. It’s the new black.

I frowned at the suggestion that the film was weird and I wondered if she was one of those people who seem to hate Wes Anderson, regardless of what he does. It seems as if most people are either with him or against him and nothing in between. (I’m an exception, since I loved Darjeeling Limited but didn’t care for Rushmore. So far I’ve met no one who thinks the same. )

But then I turned around to look in her direction and then I saw the look in her face. She was smiling. As a matter of fact she was absolutely radiant with pleasure of what she just had seen. I swear, if she had walked into an ongoing screening, people would have complained about the lights being turned on.

Pretty, funny, melancholic
I saw where she was coming from. I too felt as if I’d just received a gentle hug, which was exactly what I needed after the rough treatment I got watching Bullhead the other night.

The first word that comes into my mind describing Moonrise Kingdom is “pretty”. A lot of care has been put into the color palette, which reminds me of slides and super 8 movies from the 60s. It’s a world that mostly goes in yellow, but occasionally in red, green or blue, depending on the mood. And needless to say the costume design and the entire art direction is perfect. This is stylish and care has been taken to the smallest detail.

The second word I think of is “funny”. It’s not laughing-out-loud funny, but there are quite a few moments that made me smile a bit.

The third word that comes up is “melancholic”. There’s something about it that makes me think of sunsets or the last week of a vacation or Sunday nights. The kids in the film are just about to cross the border to adulthood, enjoying their last precious days of innocence and freedom. Think Submarine. Think Stand by Me. Think the first half of Super 8, before the monster turned up.

If you love to see children having adventures on their own with a bit of “this is going to end soon” feeling looming in the backhead, I think you’re going to like this.

Remain seated
One more word before I finish: I just want to give you a heads-up, referring to the post I wrote about extra scenes recently.

Whatever you do, if you plan to see this: don’t do like 90 percent of the audience did when I watched it! Don’t run out of the theatre as soon as the texts start running!

Stay calm. Relax. Remain seated. There isn’t any extra scene, but you could say that there’s a bit of extra content in the audio that you might want to hear since it sort of knits the beginning in the end together elegantly.

And here comes finally the TLDR version:
I was quite enchanted by Moonrise Kingdom. Go and see it if you’re into Wes Anderson’s world and style. Otherwise: don’t.

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, US, 2012) My rating: 4,5/5

Today I feel a bit bouncy

This is usually a text heavy blog, but for once I think the picture says it all. I’m a happy, bouncy lamb today.

In case you didn’t know it, LAMB is an organization for movie blogs, with currently about 1200 members including me. Among many other regular features, LAMB runs a yearly award for blogs. There are 15 categories and the winners are chosen by the members.There’s no lack of talent and dedication among the members, so the competition is fierce to say the least.

The election is run in two steps. In the first you make the nominations and in the second you vote. And now to the news that made me so happy yesterday:

When the nominations for 2012 were announced, it turned out that I was one of five candidates for the category “Best New LAMB“.

You can imagine how surprised and happy I was about it! Of course the award will most likely go to someone else in the end, so that’s why grab the opportunity now to do a bit of humble bragging and bounce around a bit before we know the outcome.

If you’re reading this and are one of the LAMBs who nominated me, I just want to say: thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you! (If I win the next round, I promise to do a more eloquent speech, but this will have to do for now).

And if you’re reading this and aren’t a LAMB member or didn’t nominate me, I want to thank you too.

Every regular reader and commenter at The Velvet Café has a part in this nomination. If it wasn’t for you, I would have run out of steam a long time ago and this place wouldn’t exist. It’s as simple as that.

Head over to Duke and the Movies if you want to see the full list of nominations for Lammy 2012!

In need of a hug after watching Bullhead

I killed a deer when I was in my 20s.

It was an accident that happened an early morning. I was driving to my job at a local newspaper one hour away when it ran into the side of my car. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard the thumping sound and as I stopped and watched in the mirror, I saw it lying on the ground. I saw there were twitches in the bodies and I opened my mouth and screamed.

I didn’t imagine anyone would hear me, or rather I didn’t even think about it. I was too shocked to think a single clear thought.

Fortunately there were other people around who hadn’t lost their minds and who didn’t hesitate to get involved and help out in the way they could. Before I knew it a trailer had stopped behind me. And in the mirror I saw the driver walk out from it with a jack in his hand. He hit the deer a few times in the head with it until it didn’t move anymore. Then he came up to me and brought me to his cab where I could sit and calm down while called the police. Arriving at the place, they decided that I was in too bad shape to safely drive the rest of the way to my job. So one of them did it for me with me as a passenger.

However I couldn’t let go of what just had happened. So I did the only thing I could to get it out of my system: I wrote about it. It was a personal piece titled something along the lines: “Me – a murderer”. (And yes, in case you wonder, it got into the paper. Nothing you write at a small newspaper is wasted; they can’t afford it. There’s a space to be filled, you know.)

The moment I was done with the text, I could feel how the deer episode lost its hold on me. Writing as therapy is pretty damned good, you know.

And that’s why I’m sitting here, writing about a movie I just have watched. Normally I would let the movie sink in for a day or two before even consider writing about it. I need to put a little bit of distance between the film and myself to really see it. If I’m too close, the picture gets blurry.

Putting Bullhead behind me
But after watching Bullhead tonight I’m afraid I won’t be able to sleep unless I first write about it, so I can get it out of my head. I left the salon exhausted, nauseated and in desperate need of some kind of comfort. So here I am, writing to put it behind me.

Bullhead was nominated by Belgium for the best foreign movie category of the Academy awards this year, leaving out another Belgian film, The Kid With a Bike, from the competition. Now that I’ve seen both I’m not that surprised of the decision. While I really liked The Kid With a Bike, this is a film that really stuck with me.

Without giving away too much of the plot, I can say as much that it’s a crime drama taking place among cattle farmers who use illegal hormones on the animals to maximize their profit. In the center of the film is Jacky, who doesn’t just inject hormones in cows. He’s using illegal medications on himself as well, and apparently it hasn’t just caused his body to blow up to gigantic proportions, it also has a bad impact on his health and temperament. Most of the time he walks around resembling to the Hulk as he’s just gotten mad and turned into the green guy, but much creepier, since he’s not a goodhearted comic character. If someone comes in his way in the wrong moment you assume he will be beaten up or possibly killed. You wouldn’t want to meet him alone at a late hour in the city.

My dislike for Jacky was massive to begin with, until the movie suddenly took a jump 20 years back in time and we got to see some events taking place in his childhood, which changed the whole picture. It didn’t make him less scary or some of the action he takes less horrible. But it helped me understand him and even pity him.

And this of course makes the events that follow even worse to witness.

Fetal position
It’s hard to describe how “tough” a film is to watch, since it varies so much between us. All I can do is to compare it to other films I’ve seen recently and I think it’s safe to say that this was the toughest watch so far this year from a violence point of view, only challenged by Tyrannosaur. If I go back to last year we have Drive that is in this league, but the question is if this one isn’t worse. It made me take a fetal position in my seat and beg for hugs on Twitter after I left the cinema (which I sadly didn’t get.)

It’s dark, it’s tragic, it’s depressing and I can imagine that the organization for meat producers in Belgium wasn’t too happy seeing it launched internationally. While the movie never makes a huge deal of the cattle business, focusing on the human drama, it still evoked disgust and disbelief and a passing thought about that it might be about time that I went back to vegetarianism again.

The film does have a couple of weak points. I’m especially thinking of the part of two car mechanics, who serve as some kind of comic relief, as silly and stupid as the Thompson brothers. I guess they were supposed to brighten up things a bit, but all they achieve is to appear misplaced.

But that’s just a minor complaint that shouldn’t overshadow how good the movie is. It’s apparently the debut of the director, and what a debut! I also can’t talk about this film without mentioning the actor Matthias Schoenaerts, who gained 27 kilos for his role as Jacky. The story is that he did this without the use of hormones, though it’s hard to believe when you see him. This is the kind of performance where you just can’t get into your head that this actually is an actor playing a role and not a real person.

Final words
I’ve been talking and talking and talking tonight and I’m afraid your ears are bleeding at this point, after over 1000 words. I’m recovered now and I suddenly feel how sleepy I am. No wonder, considering it is 1 AM in the morning.

Thank you for staying with me! It’s time to let Bullhead go.

It remains to see weather I’ll order a steak next time I go to a restaurant. I’m afraid I can’t completely shake of the image I just got of Belgian food industry.

Bullhead (Rundskop, Michael R. Roskam, BE 2011) My rating: 4,5/5

The endangered smell of a morning paper fresh from the print

Have you ever gotten your fingers dirty as you snatched the first copy of the next day’s morning paper from the print press? Do you remember the smell? Can you recall the mix of excitement, pride and exhaustion as you walked home in the night with a day’s work under your arm, seeing the distribution cars arriving to pick up where you left?

No door back
It’s been 18 years since I worked at a newspaper and you would think that I’d be over it by now. But there’s something in it that pulls me back – a dream fuelled by nostalgia to reenter the world I once left behind me when the children arrived and I decided that I’d better move to a safer territory. I tell myself lies about that I still could become a journalist again if I only chose to. Deep down I know I probably can’t.

Whenever I meet the reporters of today, seeing their crazy performance of multitasking, taking pictures, shooting films for the web and tweeting simultaneously as they write, always with an “for immediate publication” deadline hanging over them, I think that they’re a different kind of breed. If this lady turned up at a news desk, looking for a job, she’d be rightfully laughed off.

The door back to where I came from closed a long time ago. There is no return, not to the world that I knew. This is even clearer to me after I watched Page One: Inside the New York Times.

The future of journalism
While New York Times plays in a different league to the places where I used to work, the problems newspapers all over the world are facing are similar. Subscribers jump the ship since there are plenty of online sources where they can get the news for free. The advertisers go with the subscribers. This leaves them with no alternative but to cut down on their staff while desperately trying to figure out a new business model.

Where is journalism heading? Is there anyone in this world who is ready to pay for informative, investigating and insightful articles, pieces that reporters have put some proper work in? Or will we be left with nothing but gossip, speculations and pure entertainment, since that’s what people are prepared to pay for, and in the end it’s all just business?

Will printed newspapers disappear from the market as quickly as the mechanical typewriters did? I would like to say “no”, but maybe it’s just my heart speaking.

Turmoil and confusion
This documentary doesn’t try to make prophecies; it rather reflects the current turmoil and confusion in the business. There are no groundbreaking reveals but it gave me some easily digested food for thought and a glimpse into what’s going on. Even the flagship of all flagships is struggling and it’s inevitable but still sad to see.

If they make a follow-up in let’s say, twenty years time, will there even be a printed edition of NY Times? I sincerely hope so, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Page One: Inside the New York Times (Andrew Rossi, US, 2011) My rating: 4/5

When did rain become bad weather for movie watching?

There was no von Trier around to spice up the reporting from Cannes this year.

They had us for a while when we heard about Nicole Kidman peeing on Zac Efron, but once I heard that it happened in a movie and not at a press conference, my interest for the event evaporated.

The discussion about the absence of female directors in the competition ran out of steam pretty quickly. It’s not as much that the festival deliberately is discriminating against women (at least I don’t think so); it’s just a reflection of the state in the film industry. It’s sad and frustrating, but it’s not going to change anytime soon.

No von Trier, no scandals, no drama. You could always talk about the movies of course, but when you’ve learned about the twentieth movie that you’re not going to see in a year’s time, if ever, you want something different for variation.

So what are Cannes correspondents looking for a topic for a topic supposed to do?  They pull the same old card as we all do when we’re in desperate need for something to talk about: they bring up the weather.

Labeling the weather
Apparently they’ve had a bit of rain down there. This has given the reporters the opportunity to muse over the bad shape of the red carpets and the struggles of the film stars to keep their appearances spotless while moving with dignity as they cover the distance from the limos to the theatre entrances. What if their hair will get ruined? The humiliation!

What I don’t get though is how they label the weather. What I understand from all their complaining, they consider think that the raining is bad for the festival.

Bad? You’re kidding me!

Exactly when did rain become a bad weather for movie watching?

If you ask me, it couldn’t be any better! What more is there to ask for?

If you want bad movie weather, you should look at what we’ve had in Sweden the last week. Blue skies and sunshine, only occasionally broken up by fluffy little clouds that went away as quickly as they appeared.

All day long I’ve been taunted by the weather looking out of the window of my badly ventilated office room, counting hours and minutes before I would be released from my indoor prison.

Once I’ve slipped out of the grip of my job, the one thing I’ve had in mind has been to get home and walk straight to the self supported hammock we have standing in the garden. I could easily spend hours in it, staring into the sky, listening to the evening concert of the black birds, inhaling the smell of freshly cut grass and admiring the crazy tricks the swallows make in the air – just as impressive as a good film stunt. I might pick up a book and try to read a few pages, but it doesn’t take long before I’ll lose the focus and let my thoughts drift away. And when the sun was about to disappear, I would pull a blanket over me so I could hang on there a little bit longer, greeting the first stars as they arrived.

The northern view on light
You see, up here in the north we’re a little bit crazy about our few, precious, magic summer nights. We endure a winter, longer, darker, wetter and grayer than you can imagine. We’re craving for light and when the light finally arrives, we’ll crawl out from the shadows and into the sun to become human again.

We breathe the light, we drink it and we absorb it through our skin. We’re as eager and greedy as vampires getting their first sweet bite after a long period of starvation.

We watch movies here too, but in any other time of the year than during the summer. There’s no lack of nights of cold, rain and snow and when we slip into the theatre, it’s a way to escape the harshness of the place we live in. It greets us warmly with a big hug, whispering soothing words in our ears. “Let’s forget the world outside. Come with me and I will give you two hours of magic and wonder, temporary sunshine on your mind”.

However the idea to spend a warm and beautiful summer day in a theatre or in front of a TV is absurd bordering to repulsive. Why would someone do such a thing? It sounds more like a punishment than a treat.

Closed theatres
When I grew up, it was normal practice for all the cinemas in town to shut down for a few weeks when the summer vacation season peaked. No one wanted to see movies at that time of the year anyway, so there was little reason to keep them open.

When the theatres reopened in August it was a sign that autumn was waiting around the corner and a new film season would begin.

When I first heard about the tradition on the other side of the Atlantic to launch big titles in the middle of the summer, I couldn’t believe it. It was such a crazy idea. I attributed it to the same craziness that caused them to have 100 TV channels instead of two or roasting marshmallows over open fire. Such a strange, strange people!

Little could I imagine how quickly the world shrink and how things would change. We have more TV channels than anyone possibly could watch, my daughters have grilled marshmallows for as long as they remember and the blockbusters are released in the summer here at the same schedule as in US either we like it or not.

Sunshine or not, Prometheus won’t be put on hold until September. All I can do is to suck it up or send a prayer to the weather gods to send a few of the showers from Cannes to us so we can get into the mood to go to the movies.

Alternatively they could adjust the screening times and schedule them to start a little bit later at night, starting at 10 PM, when the sun is resting below the horizon and film watching feels doable again.

In any case: if I slow down with my review writing in the next couple of months, you know what’s up. I’m probably in my hammock, enjoying some astonishingly bad weather.

Cheers!