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Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG)
Listen to the Pansy Boys’ “Belt Loop” and watch the music video!
Housekeeping note: Not that it really matters to anyone but me, but I will be taking the next few weeks off. I’ll be back on March 24th!
This is For Your (Re)Consideration (previously “Replay” lol), the segment where I revisit things I didn’t like or I am ready to change my mind about.
If I don’t take Christopher Nolan movies seriously, it’s probably because he takes them so seriously. So seriously he doesn’t have an email or a phone.1 So seriously, he writes them in first person. A Christopher Nolan movie is really about capital-I Ideas, History, Time, Honor, Genius, etc. His scripts are geared to explain these concepts—nobody is asking for “eXpresso” without it meaning something.
Tenet (2020) is the most Nolan-y of his films. It stars John David Washington as The Protagonist, a man tasked with saving the world from itself, whose greatest tool is time. Since its release, it has been this enigmatic property, largely due to its coming out in theaters in the middle of the pandemic, when the majority of theaters were still closed. I went and saw the re-release last weekend with RAFTM Allison Picurro.
The Plot
A guy thinks he’s a spy (?) but actually turns out to be a pawn in his future self’s strategy game. Things blow up, Kenneth Branagh beats a guy’s brain out with a bar of gold that he then gives to John David Washington, and Robert Pattinson looks sexy.
Letterboxd: “Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.” Because any of that makes sense
The Guardian: “Our protagonist, the Protagonist (John David Washington), is an agent for an international undercover organisation who’s promoted during a new cold war (“ice cold”).”
Initial viewing
I watched this on my iPad (Christopher Nolan just threw up) sometime in late 2021 or early 2022, and fell asleep after the first hour and ten minutes. I either finished it the same day, after I woke up, or a day or two later. Either way, I found the entire thing boring and confusing. Watching it cemented two things for me: (1) That John David Washington is not a good actor and (2) a Christoper Nolan movie is the cinematic equivalent of “Men Explain Things To Me.”
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