Dark Waters

It seems to me like if you're generating a billion dollars in profit every year just from one product in your vast catalogue, and you don't pay your workforce that much comparatively, as they loyally manifest that revenue, and you know that product is making them sick because you've done the research and it's raised multiple red flags, you should tell them they'll likely become seriously ill if they work for you, so they know what they're signing up for, and pay for their medical bills if they eventually do breakdown as well.

A scant fraction of the profits.

It seems to me like if you know the product you're creating is an environmental disaster that doesn't decompose and will make anything that encounters it seriously ill, possibly forever, that you should take steps to dispose of it properly (a scant fraction of the profits), if that's even possible, or perhaps abandon your plans to market it to the public entirely.

Lifeforms who became extinct prior to our experimentations with fossil fuels could at least blame environmental factors for their disappearance, post-existence.

They didn't or don't have to say, well, we knew we were creating lethal substances that were making people who used them sick, and that they wouldn't breakdown in the environment, ever, but we kept making them anyways because we were raking it in, and were highly unlikely to ever suffer from the ground level consequences ourselves.

Could you imagine we went out not because a meteor struck or a virulent plague emerged, but because we wanted to use frying pans that nothing stuck to and eat cheap food at fast food restaurants?

If there is an afterlife for extinct species we'd be a laughing stock for all eternity.

If we're to become extinct some day, let it happen another way.

The current path that we're on's so shortsighted.

Even though the available research is 20/20.

If you think the companies responsible for creating this mess are unstoppable, your thoughts are by no means misguided, but take note that they can indeed be held to account, and be made to address their actions.

As Todd Haynes's Dark Waters demonstrates.

The film presents dedicated lawyer Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) and his fight against DuPont, who knowingly poisoned their Parkersburg West Virginia workforce and environment, for decades, and were none too pleased when they were taken to court.

Bilott took them to court though and didn't let up even as things became more and more challenging.

He sacrificed a lot to stand up for people's rights and kept on 'till he won a settlement that cultivated fertile grassroots.

His family stood by him throughout and dealt with the despondent gloom, unyielding support and commitment, intense cohesive telemetry.

Dark Waters isn't about ideologically or politically motivated avengers, it's about a god-fearing straight edge family who took plutocrats to court to help a struggling farmer (Bill Camp as Wilbur Tennant).

It calls into question categorial delineations.

While harvesting democratic crops.

Beyond popularity.

More films like this please.

Carol

Longevity, expectations, accepting who people are as opposed to who you want them to be, appreciating it as they change independently, organically, rather than as a result of the imposition of deductive logic, stereotypes, roles, baby dolls, damsels in distress, it works for some I suppose, for intervals, at times, blunt force and supple misgivings, dialogues constructed, abbreviated, expanded upon, which examine how the masculine robotically initiates, how the feminine submissively emerges, I don't know many couples like this but I see them in movies and read about them in books, often, the man not in love with the woman herself but how she looks believing it's his duty to dogmatically define her, to make her his radiant reflection, consumed by his strength, obsessed with his aura, vice versa, which may work for a time, inspiring passion and humour fuelled by traditional adherences, admittances, basic conceptions of the natural, the good, the permanent, until predictability sets in, not many able to exist for another exclusively, whether husband, wife, servant, manager, or concubine, and as time shifts and moments fade the desire for individuality, for organizational renaissance, eclipses established power dynamics, and authoritative constructs engender prolonged disputes if love can't compensate, can't cooperate, endure.

Carol Aird's (Cate Blanchett) husband can't accept who she is, and, thoroughly versed in chivalry, can only truly love her if she innocently obeys.

Yields to his will.

About to travel down the same path, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) meets Carol one day at a department store, an electric fascination etherealizing their conversation, gloves forgotten encouraging future meetings, trips to the country, unheralded destinations.

Free love.

Carol gently explores and patiently navigates disparate domains to timidly yet vividly explore ecstasy in bloom, critiquing those who too rigidly seek consensus, while celebrating the joys inherent in true romance.

Refreshingly unobtrusive, it modestly presents the facts and gracefully frees from guilt the tender.

Without seeming like it's trying to do anything at all.

Sensitive sweetly flowing wisdom.

I usually don't take note of costume design, but there's a cool scene where Abby Gerhard's (Sarah Paulson) dress suavely matches the chair she's sitting on.

Struck me anyways.

Costume design by Sandy Powell.

Art decoration by Jesse Rosenthal.

I think you're supposed to revel in the power struggle.

I always thought that path led to the dark side.

In love, anyways.

I'm Not There

Bob Dylan. Many different roads, many different worlds. Impossible to capture the essence of such a multifarious individual (or any individual really) within a film, wherein lies the strength of Todd Haynes's I'm Not There. Haynes takes several events from Dylan's life and weaves them into a fascinating biographical mosaic, challenging, creating, and invigorating different characteristics of Dylan's character (and caricatures), using intertextual, non-linear, subterranean, and heuristic devices to skillfully construct and deconstruct the myth. Different people live different lives at different points throughout their life, throughout their days, and I'm Not There aptly highlights this ontological feature. There are six Dylans, each with a different name, some with a different race or gender, each qualifying a different nuance of the legend, potently examining the potential reality within a fluctuating fantastic frame. At the same time, Haynes's portrait comprehensively analyzes what it means to be biographical, real, historical. Random quotes are interspersed throughout, riddles within conundrums within denotations, and several of them cater to Dylan's uncanny ability to simply chronicle the convoluted vicissitudes of life. Definitely long, definitely complicated, certainly challenging, positively electrifying, in a folksy kind of way, I'm Not There's not one to miss and will inspire new interpretations with each subsequent viewing.