Back in March, I went to Hayden‘s show at The Rio. Before the show, I wasn’t very familiar with his music, other than his great new album, Us Alone, and a few other songs. Still, I figured I knew what his “thing” was: quiet, unassuming music, innocuous and pleasant, enough for an enjoyably low-key concert.
I was completely unprepared to for the devastating emotional impact of this man in a live setting.
It’s kind of hard to explain Hayden’s appeal, especially since I didn’t fully “get it” before seeing him live. Yes, his music is lovely: soft, sad, and delivered with a pleasingly deep and grainy voice. But it’s also subtle, quiet and doesn’t immediately grab you. It’s almost too mellow, to the point it may never grab you at all.
Although I don’t usually go in for the confessional singer-songwriter thing, I don’t find Hayden’s lyrics to be mawkish or syrupy. There’s something exquisitely melancholy in his chronicles of failed and faltering relationships. His subdued delivery lulls you into a sense of security, only to break your heart.
Onstage, he comes across as shy and sweet, almost surprised to find a theater full of people cheering for him. It’s utterly disarming and, like I said, devastating. Oh, did I mention the fact that he is tall, svelte, well-dressed, bearded, and looks like Mark Ruffalo? This also helps.
The funny thing is, he’s remarkably self-aware and realistic about his career:
for sure, my music isn’t for everyone. A lot of people think I mumble. And that I’m mopey…. But there’s a huge, huge possibility—and I’m not being self-deprecating here—that if I fully promoted all of my records crazily, toured my ass off, had U2′s manager or whatever, had all the pieces in place, that I still wouldn’t be a big artist.
I think that attitude encompasses why I’m so taken by Hayden. He’s not doing anything ground-breaking and he knows it, but that honesty in turn drives his music. He’s unpretentious, almost to a fault, but ultimately it’s completely endearing. As he says himself, his music isn’t for everyone, but go on. Put the kettle on, wrap yourself in a blanket, and put on a Hayden record with me. Sometimes it’s nice to wallow in the sweet sadness.
Last week I watched Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I know this film is going to get lumped in with other movies about “insufferable quirky white people having emotional problems,” but it honestly blew me away. Or more accurately, knocked me down flat. The plot is simple: Michelle Williams is Margot, a wayward freelance writer married to cookbook author Lou (Seth Rogen) in Toronto. She meets a dreamy artist (Luke Kirby, from Slings and Arrows!) and her already shaky marriage starts to crumble. Rather than showing us a torrid, sexy affair, Polley instead focuses on the relationship between Margot and Lou. By giving us the sweet, day-to-day moments in their quiet life together, Polley destabilizes the notion that the grass is always greener. I thought Williams was fantastic. Even though her character veers into iffy Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory, Williams finds Margot’s shades and nuances, portraying an emotionally disturbed woman who can’t find stable ground. I also loved Rogen as Lou, and Sarah Silverman as his sister. I was already in a melancholy mood when I watched Take This Waltz, and it completely devastated me. Sometimes I like that in a movie, though.
By the way, the clip I posted above is a great visual metaphor for one of the film’s main themes: it’s a great ride while it lasts. It’s also just one of the best movie scenes from this past year. Polley’s imagery can be heavy handed, but it’s effective.
Take This Waltz has interesting parallels to Silver Linings Playbook, which I saw on Sunday. Silver Linings also features emotionally unstable middle class white people with marital problems, but it feels much more like a conventional Hollywood romantic/screwball comedy. While Polley takes an impressionistic approach towards mental illness, David O. Russell’s film is an overt examination of characters grappling with mood disorders and grief.
In many ways, Silver Linings Playbook is a blatantly manipulative, formulaic rom-com/dramedy. I could see the plot signposts from miles away, from the sparring duo who are expected to fall in love, to the lies that are designed to backfire, to the artificially raised stakes. The movie also irritatingly uses Chris Tucker as the Token Black Friend who literally teaches whitest white guy Pat (Bradley Cooper) to dance with more “soul.” At one point, an Indo-American character says “cocksucker,” and the joke is that the word “cocksucker” sounds funny in an Indian accent. Russell uses the excuse that the two leads are training for a dance competition to repeatedly show us close-ups of Jennifer Lawrence’s ass. The mental illness of the characters is exploited as a plot device to achieve the final goal of this genre: the blissful union of the central heterosexual couple. All of these things greatly annoyed me as I watched the movie. And yet, god dammit, I walked out of the theatre in a fantastic mood. But this also made me really uncomfortable, because of the way Russell abandons his unflinching, honest examination of Pat and Tiffany in favour of a feel-good ending. Pat is basically a stalker with violent tendencies, and Tiffany—who’s also kind of a stalker—is enabling him. It’s creepy and weird, but that tension drives their relationship, and the way it gets glossed over in the end didn’t sit right with me.
Even though so much of Silver Linings Playbook is so wrong, the cast rescues it. A lot of things in this movie don’t make sense, but it’s like the whole cast believed in the movie so hard that they willed it to cohere. Cooper nails his character’s inappropriate, delusional, and fragile optimism. He’s trying so hard to keep it together, but he’s a complete mess, and as a result, incredibly vulnerable. Jennifer Lawrence is hilariously off the rails, yet ferociously determined—like someone who’s completely committed to what they’ve learned in therapy. Robert De Niro plays Pat’s dad, who channels his OCD through his obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles. The idea of spectator sports as both a therapeutic outlet and an enabler of mental illness is something I’ve started to explore in my own fiction writing (which I hope to keep doing), and I think De Niro/Russell are spot on here. And really, that’s the other thing that worked for me in this movie: they got the details right. I feel like the romantic comedy framework was artificially imposed on an otherwise compelling, relatable, and funny portrait of a family dealing with various manifestations of mental illness. Side note: Julia Stiles (who was great) as Jennifer Lawrence’s sister was genius casting. They’re basically identical.
I’m also just going to admit here that I’ve had a crush on Bradley Cooper since his Alias days. Before you scoff (okay, you can scoff), hear me out. The Hangover is the worst movie I’ve ever seen (okay—half-movie, because I had to turn it off). Because of that stupid franchise, Cooper has a sleazy douchebag image. On the other hand, since he doesn’t have an outsize media persona, he’s also regarded as boring melba toast. But in every interview I’ve seen (example), he seems thoughtful, intelligent, reasonably well-adjusted, and like a generally good guy—which brings up the question of why he would participate in something as atrocious as The Hangover.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Lawrence is a media darling because she’s young, phenomenally talented, and viewed as refreshingly candid. But some of things she’s been saying lately on talk shows etc. have really made me cringe. From reading some posts on Tumblr, it seems some fans have essentially boycotted Lawrence because of her comments (Google will bring you up to speed). I’m not going to get into the details of her comments, but while I appreciate her frankness, some of her comments seem, at best, narrow-minded. I always struggle with this stuff, because I do think it’s possible to enjoy an actor’s work, even if you think they’re a complete tool as a celebrity. Love the art, hate the artist, and all that. It seems to me that the problem is not so much actors who say stupid/offensive/privilege blind/phobic things, but the whole culture of celebrity worship that puts a disproportionate amount of attention on the public personas of actors. I realize that it’s all part of the pop culture package, but it does get irritating. I absolutely think it’s important to call out famous people for making comments that perpetuate oppressive discourses, I just don’t know where to draw the line in terms of my own consumption of culture. Is it important to know all of an actor/writer/director’s political and social views before going to see a film? Does it/should it inform your view of their work? I guess it really depends on the case.
Once again, I’ve stayed away too long. To be honest, I probably won’t be posting all that regularly until I finally finish some more papers. I’m a bit freaked out that 2012 is over already, and I don’t really feel like attempting to condense my thoughts on the year into a blog post. Suffice to say: it was a good year.
As for 2013 goals…I’m not a big resolution person, but I’ll say that my main objective is to graduate. Maybe if I put it in blog-writing, it will help keep me accountable. But for now, instead of a year-in-review/preview post, I’ll share some thoughts on stuff I’ve read and seen lately, but I’ll split it into two posts and start with books.
For xmas, Michael gave me a stack of exciting new books, two of which I’ve managed to read over this winter break. I think one my first posts on this blog was a quick review of a book he gave me last year, so this feels appropriate. Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Junot Diaz’s This is How You Lose Her are actually pretty similar, which I wouldn’t have guessed from reading the summaries. Both Diaz and Egan tell their stories out of chronological order, with each chapter/story told from a different perspective/point of view, while exploring the way relationships evolve and deteriorate over time. New York looms large in both books, even though they jump to different settings throughout.
Egan’s has a wider scope and follows a bigger cast of interconnected characters, who are all directly or indirectly connected to the music industry. At first, I thought it was going to be a straightforward industry satire, but Egan is more adventurous. Some of the chapters/stories work better than others. One chapter is told entirely in a PowerPoint presentation, which worked for me, but I guess some readers will hate it. The strength of Goon Squad are the well-drawn characters, who develop slowly as small details emerge back and forth in time. Egan’s attempt at industry satire, on the other hand, didn’t do much for me. The idea that technology has taken the soul out of modern music is nothing new, and frankly, reductive, conservative, and unimaginative. In fact, a lot of the tropes in Goon Squad feel well worn, but for me, Egan’s eye for detail and subtle characterization in the stronger chapters redeemed the more pedestrian elements of the novel.
This is How You Lose Her has a tighter focus, largely centering on chronically unfaithful Yunior (Diaz’s alter ego, it seems). Diaz is more consistent than Egan, and he somehow made me care, at least a little bit, about the fate of his ostensibly unlikable, misogynist main character. In a lot of ways, it was an uncomfortable book to read. Diaz doesn’t shy away from endemic racism in the US in representing the experience of Dominican Americans. However, every time I read a text by a male author whose misogynist narrator/protagonist is supposed to expose said misogyny, I feel like it’s such a slippery slope. I’m going to direct this conversation to QueerBlackFeminist‘s blog, where she has written an eloquent post on the subject, with an equally eloquent reply from Outlaw No. 451. (*Watch out for a spoiler for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in the first paragraph!)
In any event, it’s really nice to read some books for fun instead of poring over journal articles and theory. I hope 2013 will bring more of this. More tomorrow!
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted again. Thought I’d drop in to share my thought process of anxiety/madness when I’m writing a paper in grad school. Why? Because I’m currently writing a paper, and I would like to procrastinate. I’ll write a post in defence of procrastination, too…but I’ll do that later (haha).
This topic is soooooooo interesting! I’m going to check out every book ever written about it, and read everything even remotely related to it. That’s how interesting this is!!!!!
What the hell was I thinking, this is so boring. I’m never going to read all this crap.
Having read all this crap, I’m soooo interested in this topic again! I could even write a PhD thesis on it!
I’m so overwhelmed. What the hell am I even writing about again?
Now that I’ve started writing this paper, I’m sooo interested in this again! My idea is so brilliant and original, my professor is going to suggest I submit my paper for publication in a reputable journal! Once it’s published, my paper will REVOLUTIONALIZE THIS FIELD.
My paper is a mess and complete bullshit. None of my claims are original, my logic is flawed, and I don’t even understand the theory I’m using. WHY AM I EVEN IN GRAD SCHOOL? SOON THEY WILL DISCOVER THAT I’M A FRAUD.
Ugh, who cares. I’m not curing cancer, it’s just bloody grad school. Just bang out some semi-coherent bullshit and hand it in. The earth is going up in flames in 500 million years. My paper isn’t even remotely significant.
Currently, I’m oscillating between 5-7. This, my friends, is the Cycle of Doom. Now that I’ve written it down and made it public, maybe I can call myself on it and break out of it. This seems unlikely, but it’s worth a shot.
I’ve been a negligent blogger, but I thought I’d check in to share that I’ve managed to catch the Worst Cold Ever this week. Yesterday I ventured out to Solly’s for a motza ball soup dressed like a crazy person (my outfit involved both sweatpants and a leather jacket), only to return home and collapse into a raging fever. The soup was almost worth it, though. But I had to miss a live rendition of This is That …sad face.
I’ve been nursing myself with Downton Abbey (I can’t stop!) and Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejuice. That reminds me, I’m unreasonably excited about the new Anna Karenina film. I don’t care that the reviews out of the UK have been mixed, Joe Wright + Keira Knightley + Jude Law + Kelly Macdonald + Tom Stoppard + costumes + Russia = I’m all over this. Anyway, I’m not deliriously ill anymore, just regular foggy head, achey, runny nose, cough, sweaty, chills…okay, I guess I’m still pretty sick. Elsewhere…
Just listening to Lindi Ortega’s cover of Ring of Fire on Q. I’d not heard of her before, but she is fantastic. I was expecting a typical country crooner, but she’s much more Mazzy Star than Shania. Love.
On Wednesday I caught the Animal Collective show at Malkin Bowl. This definitely exacerbated my illness, but I’ll take it. Even though I’d barely listened to their new album, the show was brilliant. Maybe the best I’ve seen this year. I won’t soon forget My Girls ringing out over the trees. Also: surrounded by giddy teenagers, I felt very old.
Speaking of old, I got an invite to my ten year high school reunion this week (even though it’s not til next year). Disturbing.
Although I don’t go to as many shows as I used to (see above: old), I’ve gone to some pretty great ones this year. Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip, and Beirut: all killer. Later this fall I’ll see Sea & Cake and Zammuto.
OMGTHEWIRE! *ahem* We are completely obsessed with The Wire. After speeding through three seasons, Michael and I decided to take a break and make it last longer. The hype is real. Best show ever. I know I’m soooo late to the party, but I’ve been avoiding it because I didn’t want it to take over my life. Too late.
Also, I started a tumblr. I just couldn’t resist the temptation of one-click reblogging.
Franz Ferdinand are playing at The Commodore tonight and I am PUMPED. The three (!) times I’ve seen them have been epic dance parties, especially their last Commodore show. Is there a better live venue in Vancouver for big acts? I think not.
Plus, I’m going with some awesome friends, including Ethel. I intend to DANCE. I’m also going to listen to their three albums on a loop at work today.
AHH, the Olympics!!! As a child/teenager, I was intensely obsessed with the Olympics. I used to keep a notebook keeping track of the medallists for Canada and Japan. I always wanted to participate in the Olympics and win a gold medal, but I could never find a sport for me, until I picked up hockey. By then it was too late and the sheen wore off…yet despite now being an adult (allegedly) and becoming aware of all the ugliness that accompanies the Olympics, I can’t resist being pulled in by the thrilling competition. No matter how crushingly awful CTV’s “I Believe” song is. The drama of the sports speak for themselves. Throwing an asinine ballad on top is major overkill, guys.
I might actually be more excited about the return of Blur than the Olympics. Their Olympics-closing Hyde Park gig is generating huge hype, in the British press, anyway. I know it’s weird to be excited about a show I’m not even going to, but such is the YouTube age we live in. Anyway, Blur played two brilliant sets at the BBC Maida Vale studios last week, one for 6Music and one for Radio 2. Both fantastic. They played Trimm Trabb! and For Tomorrow! and Beetlebum! Ahh! I live in the wrong country.
This summer is blowing by. I’m actually kind of excited for fall/winter, though. I want to hunker down and get cozy in our new apartment.
Back to Blur for a moment, my jaw dropped at the US version of the video for their 1991 single, There’s No Other Way (below). Seriously, how did this not propel them to instant suprstardom in America?? I mean, look at how dreamy Damon is! I’m pretty sure if I saw this on MuchMusic back them, I would’ve fallen in love instantly. I may have been six years old, but still. [/objectification]
I guess Food Records figured that the UK version wouldn’t fly in North America…that bowl cut, oof.
How good is this season of Breaking Bad? I’m terrified of Walter White. Bryan Cranston is unbelievable. He somehow makes Walter scarier when he’s calm than when he’s raging.
Heading to Seattle with some old friends this weekend. My first time to the States since high school. Have a great weekend, everyone!
The play of light, the melody of light, the speed of light—this is the way films will be made. No matter how much cinema tries to make things its object, the images captured on the film stock are the commemoration of light.
In the end, it is just light. Because it is light, it conquers all forms of space and time. Light is not troubled by anything.
—from a 1926 review by Junichiro Tanaka on the Japanese silent film A Page of Madness.
I watched this film in my Japanese cinema class today. Weird, beautiful, haunting.
Recently, I moved, and am still buried under a pile of boxes—hence the silence here. I’ve been thinking a lot about possessions and my need (or not) or them. More thoughts soon.
As much as I ragged on Requiem for a Dream before, I don’t regret watching it. I can’t say the same for Chasing Amy, one of the most irritating movies I’ve ever seen.
You see, I’m moving at the end of the month, and I’ve been taking breaks from packing by watching some random DVDs I got for free. Chasing Amy is going straight to the used DVD store. (spoilers … although if you watch the first 10 minutes, you’ll know exactly where this story is going)
In a nutshell, Chasing Amy is a juvenile male fantasy about a clueless dude who falls in love with a lesbian (but she’s actually bisexual, because all women are just looking for the right guy, amirite?).
Holden (seriously) and Banky are two comic book writers who achieve indie comix success with Bluntman and Chronic, who are apparently modelled after Smith’s recurring characters Jay and Silent Bob.
Holden (Ben Affleck, doing his best Keanu Reeves impression) meets Alyssa at a comi-con and instantly falls for her (no, her name isn’t Amy—the title comes from a completely unsubtle anecdote told by Silent Bob later in the film). He’s thrilled when she invites him to a club, BUT THE JOKE IS, IT’S A LESBIAN CLUB! Hilarious. Actually, the joke is that Holden and Banky (Jason Lee) don’t clue in that it’s a lesbian club (“Hey, there are a lot of chicks here!”) until Alyssa starts making out with a girl. Exposition: these guys are idiots.
So, despite the fact that Alyssa is a confident, well-adjusted woman who seems comfortable with her lesbian sexuality, she embarks on a relationship with Holden, presumably because he is irresistibly charming.
I thought he was a sanctimonious prick with a stupid goatee, buthat’sjustme.
Despite the fact that he spends most of the movie smugly reprimanding Banky’s homophobic quips, Holden soon finds out that he’s not as open-minded as he thought he was.
He’s pretty much okay with the fact that Alyssa has been with girls (although it clearly weirds him out), but what really sends him over the edge is her promiscuity in high school. Yes, that’s right. He’s a man in his mid-twenties thrown into a moral panic because of his girlfriend’s teenage sexual experimentation.
In case it isn’t already abundantly clear that Holden is an uptight slut-shamer, Jay and no-so-Silent Bob come along to explain things VERY CLEARLY so we understand what’s going on. Actually, Jay just says a bunch of mysoginistic and homophobic bullshit, while Silent Bob tells a story that’s similar to Holden’s romantic predicament, because Holden is the only one thick enough not to realize how narrow-minded he is.
All of this culminates in an insanely awkward attempt to get both Alyssa and Banky in bed with him at the same time, because this would somehow make up for the gulf in sexual experience between him and Alyssa and neatly tie a bow around the homoerotic tension between him and Banky.
What? Does anyone actually behave like this?
Really, what annoyed me the most about this movie is that Smith never seems to be able to rise above the hangups and societal pitfalls that he’s trying to undo. Or maybe he’s not trying to undo them at all. I suppose there’s something noble in accepting one’s own limitations, but I don’t understand the point in embracing one’s inner prejudiced prude. To me, this movie felt like a paean to over-privileged complacency all the way through.
To be fair, I’ll give credit where credit is due. Joey Lauren Adams was great as Alyssa. She’s like a badass Renee Zellweger with a sultry-squeaky voice (I didn’t think that was possible, but it is). Alyssa is cool and fun, and I don’t believe that she would actually waste her time hanging around losers like Holden and Banky.
Unfortunately, she’s saddled with the task of explaining femimism and queer identity to Holden in long, clunky rants, presumably because that’s the only way to get it through his thick skull.
Yet in this love triangle, Alyssa is the wedge that comes between between Banky and Holden’s homosocial bond. She has to be excised in order for their male friendship to be restored (indicated by Holden and Banky’s silent reconciliation at the comi-con in the last scene). Basically I’m saying that Alyssa is a wasted character in this movie—she deserved better.
If this movie was about Alyssa, it would have been tolerable, but instead, it’s about Holden, so it’s a self-indulgent borefest. Because, you see, Chasing Amy is all about Kevin Smith’s relationship with Joey Lauren Adams. As Smith puts it,
I wasn’t quite as liberal as I fancied myself and instead came to grips with the fact that I was rather conservative. And rather than enter therapy, I decided to exorcise my demons on screen.
Just like how Holden writes a comic about his relationship with Alyssa instead of actually talking to her about it. It’s all well and good to explore the idea that art can provide a therapeutic catharsis, but like everything else in this movie, Holden’s method of dealing with his epiphany (if you can even call it that) feels self-serving and empty.
I definitely think it’s problematic to read a fictional piece as a transparent biographical work, but in this case it goes a long way towards explaining why Chasing Amy feels so painfully mastubatory. I don’t have a problem with the basic premise, I just think that Kevin Smith lacks the storytelling finesse to pull it off. I guess that’s kind of his schtick, but it’s all a bit too self-absorbed for me to enjoy.
I’ve already written way too much about this movie that I disliked, so I’ll just close with a comment. Interestingly, Chasing Amy was released as part of the Criterion Collection. Basically, Criterion releases special editions of “important classic and contemporary films.”
I think it’s interesting that Criterion felt Chasing Amy is as “important” as, say, Seven Samurai or In The Mood For Love—and I’m not being sarcastic.
Obviously, coming up with a list of great films is insanely subjective and guaranteed to ignite debate, and there are lots of other questionable (in my mind) films on their list. It just makes me wonder about the selection process and who gets to decide which films are “important” and according to what criteria.
Clearly, there’s a caché to being included in the Criterion Collection, and some of this film snob cred is being bestowed upon Chasing Amy, along with a lot of cannonical “classics.”
Does this take the sheen off the other films? Who decides what’s a “classic”? Who am I to judge, anyway? All things to think about.
Last night I watched the whole of Requiem for a Dream for the first time.
It’s pretty bloody clear throughout the movie that Darren Aronofsky intended to have this film burned into our brains for all of eternity, and I begrudgingly admit that I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day.
(Side note: I also had the blasted score in my head all day. On the orchestral version of the score, the top commenter on YouTube says: “took a shit while listening to this song, felt like i was taking a shit to save the world.” Personally, I associate it more with figure skating.)
But I wasn’t thinking about it because it had a profound emotional effect on me—rather, I keep thinking back, trying to decide if there’s anything noteworthy in it aside from shock value and Jared Leto’s cheekbones. (Spoilers to follow, and all that)
First, a preamble: Part of the reason I’d never watched this movie from start to finish before is because in high school, the local police department punctuated their anti-drug talk with well-chosen clips from Requiem.
“Don’t do drugs kids! You’ll lose an arm!” (There’s a J. Walter Weatherman joke in here somewhere…) Somehow I don’t think Aronofsky intended for Requiem to become propaganda for drug cops.
Anyway, for me, the only major redeeming factor of Requiem was Ellen Burstyn.
While the Harry/Marion/Tyrone plot ran pretty thin, Burstyn as Harry’s mother Sara was the real heart of this film, if it has one. Sara’s attempt to resolve her pain through television is the closest thing Requiem comes to real social critique.
I have a hard time believing that an elderly patient would get electroconvulsive therapy to treat a pill addiction in the year 2000 (or even 1978, when the novel was written), but then again, what do I know? But taken metaphorically, Sara’s terrifying ordeal works as a representation—however heavy-handed—of the disorienting and depersonalized approach to mental health in the medical system.
Meanwhile, I found the plotline of Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly as beautiful wastrels somewhat unbearable.
Great performances, surely, and they mastered the art of looking attractively strung out, but did I really care about this deadbeat who treats his mom like crap and his slumming girlfriend?
Jesse and Jane from Breaking Bad trounce these two in the upper/middle class tragic heroin love story department, probably because they seem like actual human beings.
Marlon Wayans, meanwhile, totally got shafted—all we really know about his character is that he has sex with a nameless woman and misses with mama. Maybe Tyrone is better fleshed out in the novel?
I will say that the horrific final fifteen minutes of this film were pretty amazing in terms of pure movie-watching experience.
It’s hard to say which made my skin crawl more—Jared Leto’s amputation or Jennifer Connelly’s enforced sex show performance. Probably the latter, only because it totally creeps me out that Aronofsky made Connelly and the other actress in the scene do that. Now I fully understand his reputation for exploiting female actors.
If you’re curious about Aronofsky, I’d recommend The Wrestler and Black Swan. The exploitative voyeur aspect is still there in those films, but at least Marisa Tomei and Natalie Portman had real characters to work with. Watch Requiem if you must, but don’t expect to get much out of it.
