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Father Brown: The Viper's Tongue (2022)
Unpleasantly socially au courant
The last few seasons of this once enjoyable series inject anachronistic current values and issues into what assumes are the original stories. The same preachy recasting that turns some people off in Hollywood movies is here as well, if somewhat restrained.
This episode preaches that you should divorce men who throw teacups, and that Mrs McCarthy is a vicious slandered and gossip, typical of the hypocritical church. My impression of her character is that she may have struggled with judgementalism and gossip, but usually came out on the right side of the battle. We are certainly living in an era when such slander of traditional people is fashionable.
Tangled (2010)
Great film, dubious message
Very entertaining, and another lovely Disney love duet added to the whole experience. Maximus the horse was a special treat, and his comedic interactions with the male love interest were well done.
But I'm not really comfortable with the symbolism of the heroine gaining her freedom by being robbed of her gift-from-heaven life-giving power. That of course is the gift of being female and feminine.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Heavy handed self-loathing La-La Land
Humans bad, apes good. This thesis sums up the first half of the movie, harped on so heavily and in such a clichied manner that I lost interest in continuing. And apes, of which chimps are the most violently aggressive and unpredictable. La-La land for the self-loathing.
Having said that, the movie looks fantastic.
Annihilation (2018)
A metaphor for the bottom dropping out
Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson says that calamities in our lives can move us from a state of order into the realm of chaos, where we have lost confidence in our understanding of the world and of ourselves. Everything is fluid and up for grabs. Annihilation metaphorically represents this as the Shimmering, where the heroes - all damaged after experiencing some great persona loss - experience this fluid chaos in their own bodies.
And as the mutated couple reunites at the end, they are not clear about who they are anymore, but they are going through the motions. A powerful expression of life after adultery.