Station Eleven - Goodbye My Damaged Home (2021) (Episode 7)

 

MIMDB score: 9.0

Current IMDB score: 9.1

Director: Lucy Tcherniak

Main Actors you care about: Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel

Why I liked it: The first time I watched it I just thought it was good enough episode.  In context as I kept thinking and rewatching the series I noticed that this episode can be viewed on multiple levels making it in my opinion the best episode in the series and probably one of the better episodes in any tv show.  It's hard for me to say since I watched all the previous episodes, but I think you could watch this one episode by itself and understand most everything important anyway.  So even as a one-off episode you could just watch it and be entertained, I think.

Without seeing the rest of the series, you could just view this as a coming-of-age story.  Where the girl wants to put on a play during some type of post-apocalyptic event while they are couped up in some high-rise apartment.  She naively is living in a family-like setting and then a stranger comes in tearing up her world where she then takes up arms (the stranger's knife) and grows up almost instantly considering she has to now live in a post-apocalyptic world.  Her older self or imaginary friend could leave her at the same time she has to now instantly grow up.

With seeing the rest of the series, you can interrupt a bit differently.  I think this is the episode where you could make the jump that none of this happening.  It could all be an internal story to Mackenzie's character.  Station Eleven could just be a book that she is using to cope with just regular life and she could be viewing everything in a post-apocalyptic way.  Maybe her parents died at the same time as she saw Arthur die and she came up with virus/flu that knocked out most of her world but in reality, it's just her way of dealing with it.  Her troupe is doing Hamlet which is one of the best examples of a play within a play.  The year before they were doing Romeo and Juliet which could easily explain the love she actually had before all the deaths.

Thing(s) I would change:

I don't understand why the apartment door wasn't locked?  The stranger seems to just come in through an unlocked door?  I think that needs to be fixed a bit for that to make more sense.  Most high-rise apartments have automatic locking doors but also since Himesh seems to be thinking through almost everything it's hard to believe he wouldn't have locked it.  The stranger could knock down the door but the surprise of him just being there wouldn't be as impactful so you'd have to fix it another way which I think could easily be done.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:

Somehow, I kind of like the rap scene.  When Frank starts surprisingly rapping and they all start dancing it's quite happy inducing in an episode of unhappiness.

Similar Movies/TV Shows:

Probably only The Leftovers.  Maybe Contagion?

"Side" note:

It's a book.  It was filmed before, during, and after Covid was big.

Normal People (2020)

MIMDB score: 8.8
Current IMDB score: 6.9?

Director: Lenny Abrahamson, Hettie Macdonald

Main Actors you care about: n/a, you haven't heard of these actors yet.  I think the main girl will be in more things that will be good.

Why I liked it: It made me rethink my established thoughts on love.  Movies and TV shows have been few and far between on new thoughts (hence why this is the first blog post in awhile).  It's kind of crazy anytime anything makes me think differently about a subject that I've thought a lot about.

The biggest thought is I was given from this show is whether life is about the pursuit of happiness or just happiness.  I haven't fully figured out if it's better to be in the pursuit of happiness or just soak in the happiness.  My understanding before this show was pursuit of happiness > happiness.  This was because every time I've been happy in life it just leads to a loss of happiness.  Compared to the pursuit of happiness which leads to happiness.  It goes back to my GRE essay question of "can you know true happiness with true sadness".  I argued at the time that you could but nowadays I'd argue you cannot.  I think this show points out that you need both for things to matter.  It seems pretty obvious now really.  I mean I've been quoted as saying "take the good with the bad and learn to be ok with both".  That's basically this show.

I think a lot of effort was put into the shots.  Like a lot of shots will switch to focus on hands or focus on faces will be handled a way that seems correct.  I know other movies and tv shows do this well so it's nothing overly unique but I'd say this show did above average on it.  A lot of times I would say "you better not switch focus onto that other character" and it wouldn't.  This sounds bias so don't know if this is worth saying.

The music was great really.  The music choices really helped me make it past the first two episodes to think that this show had potential and I should keep watching.  It's melancholy which unfortunately is how I see good relationships.  How good it feels to be with someone should be equal to how much it hurts to be a part.  I think this tv show nails the feeling bad part when they are a part.

Thing(s) I would change:
They could maybe put a little more into the good feeling they should have when they are together.  I think the show relies too much on sex compatibility when they are together.  I understand it's 2020 and sex is way more out in the open but relationships are more than just good sex.

I don't know.  I was really turned off by the first two episodes.  I didn't really fully understand why these people where treating each other like they were and it didn't really seem like they had chemistry.  Sadly I think they had to go through that and us as viewers had to go through that same experience of why the hell are they acting like that.  Later in the season the characters basically said the same thing about how they don't know why they did the things they did in the first few episodes.  It's hard to see starting out in a show of why things are happening.  I think by the end it makes sense but it doesn't negate having the first few episodes being hard to get through.

Oh!, less nudity would have helped me to be able to recommend it to others.  Nudity for me has become just a cheap way to make things seem more intense.  Unfortunately, the amount of times I felt like this was porn leads to a 6.9 instead of a 7 or even an 8.  I feel like the only nude scene really needed to be when the main guy asks for a nude picture and she can't stop crying to take it.  I feel like that scene would have been ever more powerful with it being the only nude scene.  Nudity just in the abusive relationship scenes would have been powerful as well.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
Nothing really stands out.  I love every scene where when they are a part and that it hurts.

I think I should start eating meals with my fork upside down.  It just seems like a much more interesting way to eat.

Similar Movies/TV Shows:
Like Crazy but Normal People is much better.  A Lot Like Love.  A modern When Harry Met Sally.  Love (tv show).  Modern Love (tv show, mainly episode 5).  Normal People is not a romantic comedy.  It's a romantic drama.  You will not laugh once but you may smile or better yet smirk.

"Side" note:
I've been to Trinity College in Dublin.  It is an amazing main quad which is where he walks into when he first gets there.  I think it helped me start enjoying the show past the first few episodes a bit more.  It is interesting that being to foreign places make things seem so much more real.

The show is based on a book with the same name.

Clara (2018)

MIMDB score: 8.5
Current IMDB score: 6.9
Director: Akash Sherman
Main Actors you care about: n/a, you haven't heard of these actors yet.

Why I liked it: This movie could be considered very troupe-y but the feeling by the end of the movie that this movie gave me is what I'm looking for in an entertaining movie.  I want to watch a movie, get to the end, and then think, holy crap, I didn't watch that movie close enough.  That means to me that it's a well-crafted movie.  It has stereo-types in regular sci-fi/philosophical movies but it doesn't really matter.  It's still all well done, and the plot and execution of that plot is well done.  It (I won't say perfectly but) near perfectly rides the line of feeling/faith vs. fact-based thought.  You can either conclude that Clara is an alien that helps the main character make contact with her species, that Clara is a manifestation of the main character's son, or just a whimsical human that just randomly comes across the main character.  This is exactly what an entertaining movie wants to do.  It gives you multiple ways to think about what is happening so that you expand your mind critically.  It's great and few movies do this and even fewer do it with the simplistic, quiet style that this movie uses.

This movie glorifies astronomy in a clever, interesting, and entertaining way which I haven't overly seen before.

Thing(s) I would change:
There's a scene where the friend character says "it looks like you haven't slept" which the main character looks the same as any other scene.  Maybe the movie is saying he never sleeps but he should look more deprived of sleep I felt like.  It just took me out of the movie during that scene.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
The conversation they have while walking near a river is something out of Before Sunset for me.
Clara:  Can I ask you something?
Isaac: Yea
Clara: Why is finding life out there so important to you?
Isaac: You know what people are scared of most?
Clara: Death?
Isaac: (shakes head) The unknown which unfortunately this universe is chock full of.  Sure, we've been chipping away at it for thousands of years but we still basically know nothing.  So how do we process that?  We do what we've always done.  We make things up. Create these elaborate bedtime stories to explain it all.  But if we found something, I mean even smallest clue that something else exists out there.  Something entirely different, well we wouldn't be in the dark anymore.  We wouldn't have to be scared.
Clara: So you think the only reason we tell stories is because we're scared?
Isaac: Terrified.
Clara: Ok, but what if telling stories is just a part of human nature?
Isaac: I'm done playing pretend, I think we all should be.
Clara: Ok, Ok, What about this?  Let's say there's a scientist who is brilliant and very well respected who makes game changing, world altering advancements in his field but he's also religious, his driving force is his faith, his belief in god a bedtime story, but the result of his work is science and progress.  What would you say to him?
Isaac: What would I say?
Clara: Yes
Isaac: I'd say skip church and get back to work.  You'd get more done faster.
Clara: Well I think he did just fine.
Isaac: What?
Clara: Sir Issac Newton, I think he did just fine.
Isaac: (laughs), Alright, we've got work to do.

The projector scene of TESS images is quite interesting.  It made me want to buy a projector and do the same thing on my wall.

Having a couch outside on a roof-like place has always been a dream of mine.

I've barely hit on the music which I want to hit on more as this movie is wonderfully scored.  Classical music in the right places to give you time to think and the original version of Girl from the North Country by Bob Dylan.  The transition scenes showcasing telescope imagery of space is great.  It adds to the immersion into astronomy.  This movie makes me want to by a telescope and join an astronomy club (which if you live in a major city I bet has one)

Similar Movies/TV Shows: The Fountain, Cloud Atlas, Contact, The Arrival, Before Sunset (reminded me a few times)

"Side" note: There's a review (that I hate) on IMDB saying that the plot is great except for the "textbook manic pixie dream girl story".  I think this misses what the movie is trying to express.  If they made the girl a non-manic-pixie-dream-girl-type, then she couldn't be seen as an alien I don't feel like.  If she had more of a back-story or even grew as a character then I think you could miss that she could be "an alien that helps the main character make contact with her species, that Clara is a manifestation of the main characters son, or just a whimsical human that just randomly comes across the main character".  In general the "manic pixie dream girl" troupe really overlooks what's going on in the movie and over simplifies the point the movie is making with that character.

The actors that play Clara and Isaac are (currently) married in real life.

Life Itself (2018)

MIMDB score: 6.3
Current IMDB score: 7.9
Director: Dan Fogelman
Main Actors you care about: Olivia Wild, Oscar Isaac, Antonio Banderas

Why I liked it: My Eighth grade teacher once said she only goes to see one movie a year.  I thought to myself at the time that she was crazy.  In 2018 I only saw maybe 2-3 movies in theaters.  This movie I did not see in theaters but I'm sad that I didn't.  The trailer was astounding.  When it came out I got busy.  I read the reviews in anticipation and they were super negative so I didn't watch it till it came out in my home theater.  Most people complained about the ending which I was scared to watch when I was halfway through it.  Halfway through it I had actually felt something unlike most movies of the year.  Movies that actually make me feel something are few and far between for me this late in my understanding of life.  There's a lot of things this movie does that I like and that should make you feel something in a sea of movies that are feelingless.

There's the person-butterfly-effect as I call it.  It's the idea that everything effects everything.  It's the idea that everything is connected, very loosely, but still connected.  It's what gives meaning to good things people do that no one will ever find out were done.  It's what gives meaning to lives of lonely people that don't think most things they do matter.  It gives life meaning.  Unfortunately a lot of critics and reviewers that say this movie is too sad miss this wonderful portrait of everything you do mattering in an otherwise meaningless existence.

Thing(s) I would change: Most people say this movie is way too pretentious to be worth a watch.  They are crazy.  The movie is pretentious at times which should have been caught and edited out but it's nothing too bad.  It's a mild distraction from the monologues that make you think and feel something.  There's like 2-3 bad pretentious moments where the diagloue is trying too hard but other than that it shouldn't distract too much at all.

I really don't fully understand Rodrigo's dad left the family.  Maybe if I actually believed Rodrigo's mom loved "Rodrigo's uncle" I might see how a good person like Rodrigo's dad would have left but no, it doesn't make sense for Rodrigo's dad to leave.  Either show Rodrigo's mom actually falling in love with Antonio Bandera's character or have him die in a olive oil accident or something.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
"When critics reviewed . . . Bob Dylan's 1997 release, "Time Out of Mind," the song "Make You Feel My Love" was a source of much criticism. Every track on the album brimmed with unrelenting melancholy and sadness. But there, smack in the middle of it all, sat an unbashedly populist hit song, a love song . . . a song that in years to come would be covered by Garth Brooks, of all people. Critics argued that putting an on-the-nose love song in the middle of an album about despair and tragedy was Dylan's only misstep. Others argued that was his point."  This nails what I think is the main point of the movie.  In the sea of sad things happening, love is the only thing that makes it bearable.


"Unreliable Narrator! . . . Unreliable Narrators are considered a device, right? Don't answer. They are. They are and they don't get a lot of literary analysis because it's a gimmick. It's a trick. I mean Canterbury Tales gets a shoutout because, you know, it's good but typically it's used for popcorn crime novels and thriller movies (Agatha Christie, Usual Suspects, so on and so forth). But I'm going to argue that every narrator by its very definition is unreliable because when you tell a story there's always an essential distance between the story itself and the telling of said story, right? So therefore every story that has ever been told has an Unreliable Narrator. The only truly reliable narrator would be someone hypothetically telling a story that unfolds before our very eyes which is obviously very impossible SO what does that tell us? That the only truly reliable narrator is life itself. But life itself is also completely unreliable because it is constantly misdirecting and misleading us and taking us on this journey where it is literally impossible to predict where it is going to go next. . . . Life as the ultimate Unreliable Narrator."

The final conversation of Rodrigo and his mother gives a good thought that's probably overdone but the idea that parents pass on themselves and never die if there family tree is still alive (and in this case, loving someone).

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Cloud Atlas, The Road, Stranger than Fiction, Love Actually?, This is Us (because of the feels)

"Side" note:
I don't get it.

The Shop Around the Croner (1940)

MIMDB score: 7.0
Current IMDB score: 8.1
Director: Ernest Lubitsch
Main Actors you care about: James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan

Why I liked it: I've seen You've Got Mail a few dozen times and knew of this movie from that movie but never sat down and watched it.  I like this much better than You've Got Mail.  This movie gives a slightly different perspective on love.  In college I came up with the statement "People find the similarities in the people they like and the differences in the people they don't like."  This is a form of bias which is wonderfully displayed in this movie.  At first meeting (in person) the girl and the guy don't care for each other.  They find small things that they bother them about each other and make up their minds that this just not a great person.  The in real life relationship they find things that that make them prejudice to each other so they look for differences they have.  The pen-pal relationship they don't have the prejudice and are able find the similarities in each other.  Maybe love is just a bias and "true love" is being in love with that bias when you realize it.

What stands out: It gave me something to think about and is pretty fantastic for a movie made in 1940.  I don't even remember if it was in black and white or not which is pretty good for a movie.  (Hint: (After checking) It is in black and white.)

Thing(s) I would change: I would want to hear more about what's in their letters.  You've Got Mail read us what they wrote in there "secret" correspondence and I think this movie would have benefited from that.  I would want the "secret" relationship to make us somehow fall in love with their "secret" relationship before making us know that it's really both them.  Maybe just show the whole time from her point of view or something.  I think that would made it go up to an 8 because you'd want to rewatch it with the knowledege that he knew by the cafe scene.  It would be slightly more interesting I feel like.

There is a scene where she says something like "in first few weeks you could have swept me off my feet".  I didn't feel that.  That was either poorly acted or put in after they filmed those scenes.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:

I just found it funny:
Woman Customer: How much is that belt in the window, the one that says "2.95?"
Alfred Kralik: $2.95
Woman Customer: Oh, no!

Alfred Kralik: Pirovitch, did you ever get a bonus?
Pirovitch: Yes, once.
Alfred Kralik: Yeah. The boss hands you the envelope. You wonder how much is in it, and you don't want to open it. As long as the envelope's closed, you're a millionaire.
Whenever I used to get letters/messages from girls I loved I would think much like this.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: You've Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, Love Actually?, It's a Wonderful Life?

"Side" note:
Apparently all the scenes were shot in sequence.

Donnie Darko (2001)

MIMDB score: 9
Current IMDB score: 8.1
Director: Richard Kelly
Main Actors you care about: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore, probably a few others.

Why I liked it: This was like a precursor to understanding movies on a deeper level.  At the time this came out it was like the gateway movie into better movies.  I found this movie randomly and had no idea what it was about when I started watching.  After I watched it the first time I felt different.  This movie made me think about free will, time traveling, sacrifice, society, and many other things.  This movie is filled with thoughts if you haven't already had them.  It's a good like freshman year of college movie.  If you watch it after that then you've probably already explored a lot of the thoughts this movie can produce.

What stands out: I think the style is what stands out the most.  The weird parts could have been a big turn off.  I think the style was of being thought provoking made the weird parts seem not so weird.

Thing(s) I would change: I don't know.  The only thing that sticks out to me was the "Go back to China, bitch" line was so harsh.  I'd say it wasn't needed but kids were that harsh in high school when I was there at times so I guess it's okay.  Maybe it just seens out of character for his friends to say that.  They don't do anything else that mean.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion" -> hilarious line.  This line is so funny because it's coming from such a crazy person.  If you keep going though this line is rather interesting.  It's showing the ridiculous of caring so much about something that matters so little.  But life is mainly about figuring out what matters and then doing the crap out of that thing that matters.  So maybe this ridiculous woman is crazy for caring about her daughter's dance troupe so much but also maybe she's living life to the fullest with full passion?  It's hard for me to get upset with people that care about such stupid and mundane things (to me) when life is all about finding this "stupid and mundane" things.  One woman's Sparkle Motion is another person's Cellar Door.

The bubble out of his chest scene was pretty crazy.  Mostly because I didn't fully understand it later until I remembered the scene that said "Not if you travel within God's channel."  It's really a scene about free will and he's seeing other people's free will through God's channel and then starts seeing his own.  Really interesting scene.  It's during a party scene so you could just take it as Darko being on drugs or drunk if you wanted to though.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: The Fountain, Mr. Nobody, Back to the Future? Predenstation

"Side" note: This youtube article explains most of the movie.

Your Name. (2016)

(Yea it's Anime. Usually I don't like Anime either.)

MIMDB score: 7.5
Current IMDB score: 8.6
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Main Actors you care about: none

Why I liked it: This is an anime movie meaning it's a Japanese animation movie.  That means it's going to be weird to people that don't understand Japanese culture or movies.  Even if you do it's still weird usually.  I think that's the defining characteristic to anime in my opinion.  It's weird.  I used to like the Spirit Away but when I re-watched it I can't stop cringing at how weird it is.

Your Name. (with the period) is a decent story.  It might even be a good story but the what stands out is the music.  The music really adds a layer to the movie like music should.  I found myself wanting to have the movie on just to hear the music in the background.  Then I found a lot of the songs have been redone in English and started listening to those.  Even the music without English lyrics are very catchy.  They seem like pop songs but really meaningful pop songs.  You can kind of tell it from the Japanese version that it's meaningful without even hearing or seeing the English lyrics.  Violin + soft piano + meaningful lyrics = magic in my book.

If you can get past the weirdness though this movie is quite a gem for science fiction, romantic comedy, violin-piano music lover like myself.  Time traveling or multi-verse is a really popular idea right now.  I think it's a very easily coping way of looking at the your life.  If you believe that there is another version of your life out there where another you is doing the things you wish you were doing it kind of makes not being able to do those things ok.  Like I might not be an astronaut in this life but there is a version of me out there in another universe doing that.  It kind of lets you imagine that some version of you can do anything so you can do anything.  This movie doesn't get too much into multi-verse thoughts but the same thing for time traveling.  The thought is a little different but same thing kind of holds.  If I could go back in time I could teach myself how to be at the right place at the right time with the right skills to be an astronaut.

What stands out: Music as stated earlier.  This is a science-fiction romantic comedy amine movie.  Probably all those genre's in one movie is what makes it stand out as well.

Thing(s) I would change: Pretty easy.  Don't be so freaking weird in the beginning.  I know a lot people will turn this off before it gets interesting because the movie does some weird stuff in the beginning.  This girl is rubbing her boobs? which turns into a montage of random city-life and country life shots while really fast electric Japanese music plays?  Just watch the first ten minutes and tell me what the heck is happening.  That's normally good but with the backdrop of anime it makes for people that don't get the culture to give up on it.  I don't like a lot of anime because of things like that.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene: "I Love You" "I can't remember your name with this!"

Similar Movies/TV Shows: The Secret, any body switching movie, Back to the Future, probably any other good anime but only if you can handle weirdness. This is probably the least weird anime I've seen.

"Side" note: Mitsuha's name means "three leaves" and follows a family trait. Her grandmother's name, Hitoha, means "one leaf," her mother's name Futaba, means "two leaves," and her little sister's name Yotsuha, means "four leaves.