The nature of power, the stories people tell about us, and the stories we tell ourselves is a current throughline within seemingly everything I’ve been watching lately.
Dune Part 2. Loved it, IMAX recommended. The sheer scale of story isn’t just something exposited, you feel the crushing weight of it throughout. The film is trimmed to the point where some detail is skipped over, but the upside is the story never loses momentum. The underlying political economy remains relevant at all times.
Shogun feels true to the source material. Beautifully rendered. The possibility of power, and in turn the taking of power from others, can force your hand. How many coups are forced by the expectation of a coup? Funny how a world can hinge on an inelastic resource, be it a planet’s worth of hallucinogen or a single sailor’s navigational human capital.
The Great. Funny, decadent, ludicrous, and pitch dark at different times, I see a shocking amount of my own worldview in the writing. The alchemy of fear and self-interest swirling around power makes for an incredible comedic substrate. I recommend this to anyone who will listen and I’m probably going to write more about it.
The Kid Detective. How did none of you tell me about this movie? Much like Confess Fletch, it is an absolute gem that fell through the cracks of a theater-less pandemic. A dark comedy about the tragedy of being labeled a prodigy and how that can short-circuit a young person’s development, set within a town short-circuited by a crime. It’s not a happy movie, so don’t expect a happy ending, but it felt honest at every step.
Economist Writing Every Day 