
In an imaginary American city, God consigns its licentious citizens to hell but they truculently reply that they are already there. Mahagonny ‘the city of nets’ is founded in the desert by three criminals on the run from the police. It is to be a city devoted to pleasure. The only god is money. So Jimmy Mahoney, the hedonistic lumberjack, is condemned to death for being unable to pay the bill for the whisky he has consumed. A testament to the fertile but fraught collaboration between composer Kurt Weill and man of theatre Bertolt Brecht, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is one of the great operas of the 20th century. Brecht might have resented the dominance of the music over the words but together they created a work with rich melody and unstoppable dramatic momentum.
How do zombie films shine new light in the post-Covid and post-Brexit era?
A refreshing twist is that all the kids’ powers are…kind of useless. There’s a kid who can only move in slow motion, a kid who has every power in the world but can only use them randomly, and our main character Missy who has no powers at all. The thesis of the film seems to be that it doesn’t matter what kind of powers you have, its the way you use them, which is good for the warm and fuzzies.
This 2023 film serves as the final chapter of the Indiana Jones franchise.
If you’re also a major fan of the familiar strangers story between two people of different generations, here are 5 underrated films you probably haven’t heard of, but might thoroughly enjoy.