Satirizing the art world is hard. People outside of it think they have a lot to say about it because a banana duct taped to a wall can make headlines. Visual art is not my area of expertise as a writer, though I try my best to approach it with an open mind.
Velvet Buzzsaw does not have that mindset. The intent is to burn the whole thing down, sometimes literally, and the results are at least a novel framework for a paranormal slasher film.
Fast Color is a superhero film. The characters in the film disagree, literally saying they’re not superheroes, but they are. The stakes of the narrative and their potential impact on the world vary in significance throughout the film, though the selfless desire to save their world is always there.
What Gerwig refuses to do in her Little Women is sacrifice Meg, Beth, and Amy to tell the story of Jo. Jo is the central figure that connects all the plots together, though she is not shoehorned into every imaginable scene to make her the hero of the story. Meg is allowed to be a complicated character who believes growing up to discover a different dream is an admirable thing. Amy is allowed to grow and mature into an adult, still headstrong but able to accept that the world does not revolve around her. And Beth, dear sweet Beth, is shown to accept not just her fate but her own value in the world, where she is allowed to pursue her own happiness and take up space in the world.
One thing I always make it a point to do, no matter how busy my schedule, is a year-end wrap-up. I have a few more 2019 features to take in before I commit to a Best Films of 2019 list. However, I’ve seen enough films in the past 10 years to comfortable evaluate what I believe to be the best 25 of the decade.
I stand by every word of my unconventional review of the Cats film. The version released in theaters Thursday, 19 December 2019 was an unprecedented mess, filled with digital glitches rarely seen out of video games being beta tested. The use of light, color, scale, perspective, editing, sound design, digital wardrobe, and CGI effects created something so off putting, so unnerving, so unusual that it did not feel like a film. The only way I could express the feeling of dread and frustration that overwhelmed me was to write my review as a piece of psychological horror.
