It’s Jane McAlevey and Eddie Glaude that make the most persuasive arguments here. Putnam is able to observe an effect, an effect that I concede is real and consequential, but is unable to posit a meaningful cause for it. How do you hit a target you can’t name?

I have strong feelings about solidarity, reciprocity, and community. I should be an easy mark for Putnam’s case. I want people to join clubs (mine or otherwise). But the reality is that I regularly talk to people who’re motivated to join but struggle to do so given their work schedule, commute, or other obligations. It isn’t the TV that’s doing it.

Was initially ambivalent upon leaving the theater, but as more time passed, it’s grown on me. There’s one sequence, upon a high peak, where the straight-forwardness of the events is halted, and something truly extraordinary happens. I found myself, in that moment, surprising moved, almost to tears.

As time passes, that moment, and little ones like it, are the ones that have stuck with me. A memory polished by the tumbling of time.

AI hangs over this “restoration”. Made from an inferior replica of the inaccesible (to this restoration’s creators) masters. We already live in a world of weirdly shiny True Lies Ai-aided restorations.

While watching, I thought it was strange that the character of the linework seemed to change from scene to scene, or even shot to shot, in a way that didn’t seem obviously motivated by anything. Having now rewatched scenes of this from their DVD release, it seems clear that these aberrations are AI “confabulations” (“hallucinations”, while the more widely used term, seems inappropriate and imprecise).

Sad that I missed this much earlier when Joe Talbot was screening it at the Roxie.

Compelling portrait of two approaches to trauma, one of which is coated in an unstable magic. We’re induced to believe, against all rationality, often embodied by the airline-issued psychiatrist. Ends a bit too pat for my tastes.

MacDowell’s reign of terror continues. I swear there was an instance where she smashed two lines together as if she missed the period, and they kept that take amongst all of the other options.

I walked in already suspicious of Baker, and much of this (especially the leering choices) seemed to confirm my suspicions. Ultimately, this is let down by the strange/empty characterization of Ani herself, especially with the thudding arrival of the ending.

Better in concept than execution. Nothing that Keating does in the class room, beyond the page tearing, really conveys a sense of transgression and revelation for the students. We’re just asked to accept that poetry in silly voices stirs the spirit.

Perhaps in 1986 Allie would be recognizable as a human, but in 2024 this guy is wholly alien. A grab bag of grandiosities that don’t all make sense in one person simultaneously, it mostly makes this about one guy who sucks.

And not even a guy who’s wrong! Some of those grandiosities are indulged in a way that undercuts the characterization. As if Allie is largely correct that he’s in the right and it’s the world dragging him down.

I saw セカチュー early in college, probably an ideal time, and so I’m primed for the terminally-ill-young-love story. I also used the 青春18切符 while I was living in Japan. I’m also very similar in age to the protagonist. I was ready for whatever this was gonna do. Plus I’m on a plane, my tear glands are prepared.

Watched in optimal rom-com setting, on a plane, where I’m most likely to be deeply moved.

This did nothing for me. I appreciate how their relationship felt real, but if a romcom’s success hinges upon the viewers desire to see a couple end up together, I just didn’t care. I don’t really like either or these people, and don’t care about their future.

Ultimately I’ll remember this as a handful of excellent scenes or shots seasoning a bland dish.

Watched with a 3 year old who wasn’t actually that interested. I don’t blame him. Woody is insufferable.