As the saying goes, the internet is made of cats.  Which is true because it’s the best way for cat lovers to both share and watch videos starring their favorite animals.  Since there are so many videos of cats doing inexplicable things that anyone can readily watch on their phone, how does one explain the ongoing popularity of the CatVideoFest film series?  (It began in 2019, and after a Covid lull has steadily grown over the past five years.)  To paraphrase Homer Simpson, why would people pay to watch something they can already watch for free?

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There are two things I admire about Christopher Nolan.  First, he’s never made the same movie twice (outside of the Batman trilogy).  He’s Kubrick-ian in that way, setting out to make the best movie in every genre he visits.  Second, he relishes large-scale storytelling.  Like his peer Denis Villeneuve, he loves painting on the biggest canvas possible.  Taken together, it makes perfect sense that Nolan would tackle The Odyssey, an epic tale in a genre he hadn’t conquered yet.  That said, the movie contains all of the narrative and stylistic touches you’d expect from a Nolan film, right down to the “what did he say?” moments of dialog dialog.

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I wish I had more time to watch movies than I do.  The list of them I’d be ashamed to admit I’ve never seen is quite long and grows by the day.  For example, when Brian Wilson, the former leader of the Beach Boys, died in 2025, memorial articles referenced Love & Mercy, which came out ten years prior.  Wilson’s passing finally motivated me to see the film, which had been routinely praised for its performances by Paul Dano and John Cusack.  That praise was well-deserved, because the movie is one of the best biopics about a musician I’ve seen.

Continue reading “Love & Mercy (2014)”