More Movies

The Martian

Not at all impressed. A not-true-life version of Apollo 13 (which was impressive exactly because it really happened). I know hardly anything about Mars, so as far as I'm concerned the whole thing was a far-out fantasy.

River

Not a movie, but a BBC psychological crime drama miniseries. Really good and deals with mental illness.

Love and Mercy

This was really good, although very emotional. Fame, disability, care.

Blow Out

We've begun Francisco's philly movie series and Blow Out was great, if a bit of a horror film (I've never seen a horror film, so I'm not one to judge, but it seemed horror-ish to me). Philadelphia is one of the characters of the film, from Reading Terminal Market to Penn's Landing to City Hall to 30th Street Station. It is beautifully shot, perhaps the scenes at 30th especially so (they've made me look at the station in a new way). And Philly isn't just a pretty face--its celebration of liberty. The historical situation of liberty throws the question of whether we are still free and self-ruling and what must be done to maintain that freedom into stark relief. In that sense, John Travolta is the real citizen, the modern day Socrates pursuing the truth. (I'm overselling it a lot--it's just an action film, not really philosophical at all.) But Travolta is spirited!

I've been thinking more about 30th Street Station. It's well done and grand, but it's also cold and angular and too big--people walk like ants around its floor. Everything is flat and square, even almost the columns. There is just corner upon corner. And the marble--so impersonal and cool. I wonder if that's why it works especially well in Blow Out and The Witness as sites of crimes--it's a little like a parking garage, which is always the site of a crime, perhaps quintessentially in Pelican Brief. 

Oh my goodness, I sobbed the whole way through A Brilliant Young Mind. Since I've become a mother, I can't watch anything about mothers and fathers and sons without using a whole box of tissues. I've gone to mush.