weekly digest: how to blow up your personal paradigm?
everything that happened at Flick Filosopher from Monday, Apr 3, to Sunday, Apr 9
It’s a bank holiday in the UK today: Easter Monday. Easter in the UK is kinda like how Thanksgiving is in the US: a long, four-day holiday weekend (Good Friday is also a UK bank holiday) that many people use for either visiting family — with even a greater priority than Christmas — or for escaping on a long getaway. As a transatlantic transplant, I feel like I kinda lose out on both: today does not feel like a holiday for me, because my US readers are expecting the usual Monday stuff from me, but when it’s Thanksgiving in the US, it’s just a regular Thursday, and regular ensuing weekend, where I am in the UK.
Ack.
I keep thinking of sci-fi writer and modern techno-philosopher Cory Doctorow’s 2004 novel Eastern Standard Tribe, which I read long before I even ever thought of moving from New York to London, and which I am clearly going to have to read again. It’s about digital nomads, from long before the time when that phrase was even invented, who feel the compulsion to stick to the time zone of their origin.
Twelve years on from leaving NYC, I’m still inextricably part of the Eastern Standard tribe. I’m not sure that’s wholly healthy…
—MaryAnn
new at flick filosopher, Apr 03–09
daily stream: end of an era for journalism and publishing
The brand-new documentary Turn Every Page is on Prime and Apple TV on both sides of the Atlantic. [read more]
daily stream: while you’re waiting to learn how to blow up a pipeline…
2014’s Night Moves is on Fandor in the US, Mubi in the UK, and lots of other services on both sides of the Atlantic. [read more]
How to Blow Up a Pipeline movie review: it means the earth to them
A heist drama, incendiary and intense, with planetary stakes. These young people are desperate, with nothing to lose, and everyone older than them made them this way. Nihilism is their only optimism. [read the review | cinemas US; UK Apr 21st]
daily stream: when the world pushes men to ridiculous displays of masculinity
2018’s The Mercy is new on Kanopy in the US, on StudioCanal Presents in the UK (and on many other services on both sides of the Atlantic, too). [read more]
daily stream: Hong Chau, very small before she got very big [pictured]
2017’s Downsizing is on Paramount+ in the US, Prime in the UK. [read more]
daily stream: say hello to his boomstick
1993’s Army of Darkness is on Prime and Apple TV on both sides of the Atlantic. [read more]
loaded question: what great comic actors have turned out to be even better dramatic actors?
Who are your favorite comics turned serious actors? Who has most memorably made such a transition? [reply at Flick Filosopher | reply at Substack | reply at Patreon]
what I’m bingeing
The Mandalorian [Disney+ globally]: I absolutely adore that Jack Black and Lizzo are living their best Star Wars life, and that they are sending some sad nerds off
Old Enough! [Netflix globally]: still have not gotten back to this, I’m a terrible person
Picard [Paramount+ US (via Prime)/Prime UK]: they are really determined to get the entire gang back here; that said, I’ve been in love with Data since 1987, so I guess I’m okay with this
The Power [Prime US/Prime UK/and globally]: loved Naomi Alderman’s book, but not yet entirely sold on this adaptation; really good cast (Toni Collette can do no wrong), but needs more female rage (if you think there’s a lot of female rage here already, you have no idea)
Tweet of the week…
Appalling. Why would Warner Bros. do this?
(Tweet here. Apparently Substack is no longer embedding tweets, I guess in response to Twitter no longer allowing links to Substack to be tweeted. We are living in the worst timeline.)
coming up at Flick Filosopher…
Russell Crowe IS The Pope’s Exorcist
Katie Holmes’s third directorial effort Rare Objects
Nicolas Cage as Dracula in Renfield
John Wick: Chapter 4
Owen Wilson in dramedy Paint
newly minted Oscar Best Picture Everything Everywhere All at Once
British indie rom-com Rye Lane
rom-com What’s Love Got to Do with It?
action comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre
hippies turn religious freaks in historical drama Jesus Revolution
Cocaine Bear, which will surely be the film of 2023
animated flicks Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Amazing Maurice
as many Oscar nominees as I can get to (including the shorts)
#MeToo dramas She Said and Women Talking
indie horror Skinamarink
And more!
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