A TED talk took me through a rabbithole on a blog that now just redirects to a scam website that hosts some gambling products or something, but back in 2012 (accessible through archive.org), was known as ifoundyourcamera.net. The website’s purpose was to act as a blog where someone would upload various photos to a blog that they’d found on peoples’ disposable cameras just left lying about, then hopefully people would be able to find their photos through the blog and receive their lost camera. However, a secondary function of the website is to feel this weird way- discomfort, maybe- to the photos viewable on the website. The website is full of photos that were never meant to be seen. Art like this has always fascinated me— it’s what I really appreciate about Bull of Heaven’s Elsa, Are You In There? as that’s just a someone’s voice on some telephone tape or something, and the sad lonely drone compliments the lost feeling of it all. As I walked through my neighborhood today, I listened to Unedited Voice Memos. It’s a similar thing to ifoundyourcamera, but with sound. Audio never meant to be heard. There are a few actual songs on this, the last one is really spectacular and very in the vein of Betelmire. But anyway, the sky is a light grey. The sidewalk’s gotten brown and everyone’s inside because the day is short of “perfect weather” to most folk. And by the time I’m hearing the very end I’m face to face with rain droplets. It’s the end of what may not be the best album ever, but alternatively is a singular work of art and something that shows how connected we are as people.
Forrest Gump is a mentally challenged well-meaning man... Who by a series of unending improbable coincidences ends up becoming an extremely famous and rich man... And as part of the film's sentimental tone... Remains humble throughout the entirety of his life.
Nearly every scene of this movie contains memorable cinematography, dialogue, and acting... But the absurdly impeccable character of Forrest seems to just serve as a harbinger of its feel-good bittersweet story... Like something out of a Disney story.
Tom Hanks does provide an exceptional performance in this film and handles every scene with unmatched professionalism. He really is what gives this film life.
Joker is hated by mainstream reviewers for showing unapologetically, albeit in dramatized style, the harsh reality of systematic abuse and apathy the mentally ill and impoverished face every day. It takes the radical position of depicting people similar to the fictional Thomas Wayne as not the solution, but rather the problem. The poor to people like Thomas Wayne are clowns, not even worthy of contempt. If only they'd work as hard as he, then maybe they'd share his wealth and success! Or so he'd like to believe. His son Bruce will presumably grow up to become Batman, a rich spoiled vigilante that gets his kicks by beating up opportunistic criminals in an urban environment of decay and destitution. Like his father, Bruce is merely part of the problem at best is a symptom of a society facing total moral collapse.
Arthur from the moment of conception is abandoned and left to be abused by a narcissistic "caretaker" and her bad boy boyfriend. He grows up horrifically broken and fantasizes receiving fatherly love from a talk show host. This is the kind of man that is starved of love and has known only the vicious callousness of his anomic society.
It's hard to say if Arthur would have grown or developed normally to begin with, but the fact of the matter is: he is given no chance or hope. His only path is to become insane. All other doors have been shut...
Instead of helping Arthur, his society cuts his meager therapy and leaves him without his many prescriptions. Arthur is subject to physical abuse without any recourse. And the man he came to fantasize as a fatherly figure, ridicules and mocks Arthur for the sake of empty entertainment. The end result is not surprising.
