[Mac Sirloin]

I have a friend who loathed the first Purge movie, but he says The Purge: Anarchy was actually entertaining. I hesitate to use the words 'good' with these movies because they're really, really, really, really stupid, but I may go to see Election Day since it looks pretty nuts.


I watched the 2001 animated Metropolis, a rough recreation of the 1927 feature. It's a phenomenal piece of visual storytelling, but it's got so much weird, jilted exposition. Just that classic bad anime dubbing:

"RED DUKE, MY FATHER, YOU SHOULD SIT ON THE THRONE, NOT THIS MACHINE!!!"

I felt a little irked by the awkward dialogue by the end but it was really, really beautiful. Just a fantastically gorgeous movie. Metropolis itself is so complexly realized as the city of the future, and while it does have some stilted dialogue the themes are consistent, the soundtrack is great and it just looks amazing.

Here, watch the ending. Pretty minor spoilers to be honest, and the whole sequence is just beauty-ful.


I keep seeing people complaining that the movie suffers from a soundtrack that doesn't suit the setting, but I think it captures it perfectly. Tons of Jazz and Rhythm and blues from pre and post depression America, capturing the sense of exceptionalism and the low-down bepop lifestyle of the Zone 1-ers and beyond. It's like people want it to have some convoluted, overproduced instrumental or irritating electronic score, but I think that Ray Charles' rendition of "I can't stop loving you." is extremely fitting for this sequence, and animation is one of the few mediums you could use a dissonant soundtrack to your advantage to assist the tone of an otherwise lighthearted feature.