Resevoir Dogs

Directed by Quentin Tarantino, Written by Quentin Taranatino and Roger Avary

Film

As a known enjoyer of character actor ensembles and of “crime but we fucked it up” stories, I had rather high hopes for this one; and was a little let down. Never been super huge on Tarantino’s dialogue, despite enjoying everything I’ve seen by him, and it’s here in its fullest vulgar form. While it adds some texture I think it goes too far into self indulgent territory to be interpreted as anything more than edgy shock value. I do appreciate some non-linearity in storytelling, and the core of the ensemble, Mr. Orange, Pink, and White, provide great performances that kept me engaged throughout. idk man I liked it fine.

Hellboy Complete Short Stories Volume 2(DNF)

Mike Mignola and many others

Comic One-Shots

A disappointing last forray into the Hellboy universe for me, this continued the downward slide from the first collection, completely lacking the spark that made the series - even in its low points - emminently readible. Something about them just doesn’t work well. Sucks but it happens I guess. Onto East of West(Now Upgraded to really fucking good) “full time”

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

Manifesto

Half very good, very relevant passages and the rest is nearly indecipherable historical context I couldn’t hope to unpack.

Equilibrium

Written and Directed by Kurt Wimmer

Film

Absolute funniest dystopia ever made, so transparently hollow that the core conceit is broken by even the main character and enforcers of it consistently expressing emotions against the premise. The metaphors are hilariously on the nose, textually stating that living without emotions is just waiting to die in an actually quite good quote out of context: then having the way people inject the bullet shaped emotion suppressors with the gun shaped injectors by putting to their neck -- very subtle. Plus they had the “underground resistance” literally underground, beneath the feet of the city, so the police people couldn’t find them – pure gold. While the setup doesn’t work on a logical or plausible level, if interpreted more as an illustrative projection – a la 1984 – its rather played out yet still important message comes through better. The action is hilariously goofy(I adore the fake martial art they made, and the mathematical justification for it), even if sub optimially filmed at times.

The whole reloading thing in one of the final fights is probably the hardest I’ve laughed during a fight scene in a long time, if you know you know. As a known Christian Bale enjoyer this was a mild disappointment, given the premise he had very little to offer dramatically, but it was nice to see him in an action role for once. Plus his perfect Patrick Bateman blank stares never failed to get a laugh out of us. Great fun for a C-movie, though I’ll need to return to a Bergman for cleansing.

Oh also the like hallways to the execution chambers were just the hyperlooop.