Stuff I've been watching
Feb. 14th, 2020 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherI tried season 3 of Anne with an E, but stopped because it got too sad. This is a spoiler/warning:
Mary (Sebastian's wife) dies of infection. I am so tired of characters dying, and in this case it's a black woman who was just a ray of sunshine and had a young baby.
The season is also dealing with indigenous people and the racism directed at them, which felt to me both heavy-handed and painful to watch.
Someone on Twitter was talking about the movie "The Sisters Brothers", so I got it out from the library. It's a Western film based on a book. I liked this more than I expected to-- as it went on it drew me in deeper to the story and the relationships. It's a very male-focused story, and it's violent, but it was unexpectedly affecting. I loved the landscapes and the bits with horses.
John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix play the brothers, who are hired killers for someone called the Commodore. Their current job is to track down, extract information, and kill a man named Warm (Riz Ahmed) who claims to have a formula for a chemical that will make it easy to find gold in water. They start in Oregon and chase Warm into California. Warm has been identified and tracked by another of the Commodore's agents, Morris, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. But, Warm is a very charming and intelligent man, and he befriends Morris and turns him to his side.
The film focuses largely on the relationship between the brothers, and their trials as they attempt to find Warm and Morris. There is some humor to this story, as they bicker and fight.
It's really perfectly cast:
John C. Reilly's character is a guy whose heart is too soft for the work he's doing.
Phoenix's character is a hot-tempered asshole who drinks too much, but who changes during the course of the story.
Morris is observant, contemplative, and possibly in love with Warm.
Warm is dynamic, magnetic. It's unclear during the first two acts if Warm is a con man, or if he's deluded by a fantasy, or if he really is a genius.
Content notes: alcohol abuse, plenty of violence, animal harm (some horses die of natural causes), fire, a disturbing scene with a spider.
Mary (Sebastian's wife) dies of infection. I am so tired of characters dying, and in this case it's a black woman who was just a ray of sunshine and had a young baby.
The season is also dealing with indigenous people and the racism directed at them, which felt to me both heavy-handed and painful to watch.
Someone on Twitter was talking about the movie "The Sisters Brothers", so I got it out from the library. It's a Western film based on a book. I liked this more than I expected to-- as it went on it drew me in deeper to the story and the relationships. It's a very male-focused story, and it's violent, but it was unexpectedly affecting. I loved the landscapes and the bits with horses.
John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix play the brothers, who are hired killers for someone called the Commodore. Their current job is to track down, extract information, and kill a man named Warm (Riz Ahmed) who claims to have a formula for a chemical that will make it easy to find gold in water. They start in Oregon and chase Warm into California. Warm has been identified and tracked by another of the Commodore's agents, Morris, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. But, Warm is a very charming and intelligent man, and he befriends Morris and turns him to his side.
The film focuses largely on the relationship between the brothers, and their trials as they attempt to find Warm and Morris. There is some humor to this story, as they bicker and fight.
It's really perfectly cast:
John C. Reilly's character is a guy whose heart is too soft for the work he's doing.
Phoenix's character is a hot-tempered asshole who drinks too much, but who changes during the course of the story.
Morris is observant, contemplative, and possibly in love with Warm.
Warm is dynamic, magnetic. It's unclear during the first two acts if Warm is a con man, or if he's deluded by a fantasy, or if he really is a genius.
Content notes: alcohol abuse, plenty of violence, animal harm (some horses die of natural causes), fire, a disturbing scene with a spider.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-15 07:52 pm (UTC)The Sisters Brothers sounds intriguing. I have a very warm spot in my heart for anything with John C Reilly. Two other movies of his I liked: Cedar Rapids (also has Ed Helms, satirizing Midwestern businessmen at conventions) and Boogie Nights (long & strange movie about the porn industry in the 70s). I want to watch Stan and Ollie sometime but I bet it will be sad.