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Star Rating: 4.5 Stars
Four and a half stars, out of five.
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Insect Hoofs on Lassie
The term “acquired taste” was invented to describe bands like Cardiacs. This band of Brits specializes in a hyperactive blend of punk, progressive-rock, and circus-music. Their songs, featuring densely-interwoven musical themes and whiplash changes, frequently evoke the feeling of a mental-disorder. With “Lassie” — not the band’s most accessible track, nor one of their most forbidding ones — bandleader/vocalist Tim Smith provides a lyric which finds deep truths in a bizarre story about a boy playing God, fashioning his own personal version of a pop-culture obsession. In another room, I hear Depeche Mode singing, “Your Own… Personal… Lassie”
The term “acquired taste” was invented to describe bands like Cardiacs. This band of Brits specializes in a hyperactive blend of punk, progressive-rock, and circus-music. Their songs, featuring densely-interwoven musical themes and whiplash changes, frequently evoke the feeling of a mental-disorder. With “Lassie” — not the band’s most accessible track, nor one of their most forbidding ones — bandleader/vocalist Tim Smith provides a lyric which finds deep truths in a bizarre story about a boy playing God, fashioning his own personal version of a pop-culture obsession. In another room, I hear Depeche Mode singing, “Your Own… Personal… Lassie”
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Poor Things
I find Yorgos Lanthimos to be a fascinating filmmaker, although it’s generally difficult to say that one “loves” his movies. His films are satirical and often bleak, but also frequently funny — in a painful kind of way. He is sharp observer of social customs and human interaction, and he seems to enjoy making the kinds of stories where poor ordinary souls are caught in absurd situations, without realizing how absurd their situations are. In his movies, the absurd is commonplace, and much of the satirical humor comes from the way people accept the strangest of occurrences as simply “the…
I find Yorgos Lanthimos to be a fascinating filmmaker, although it’s generally difficult to say that one “loves” his movies. His films are satirical and often bleak, but also frequently funny — in a painful kind of way. He is sharp observer of social customs and human interaction, and he seems to enjoy making the kinds of stories where poor ordinary souls are caught in absurd situations, without realizing how absurd their situations are. In his movies, the absurd is commonplace, and much of the satirical humor comes from the way people accept the strangest of occurrences as simply “the…