Bareback Fraternity Initiations (2014)

I imagine that it would be a dream job for an actor to play the parts of twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey in I Know This Much Is True.

“Is it real? Does it exist? Of course it does," read Snyder’s tweet about his cut of ‘Justice League’. Little did we know, not only does it exist, but it is enough to fill 4 full episodes, each an hour long.

Dead Poets Society relies on patriarchal tropes such as overbearing fathers, contrived brotherhood, and faux-individuality in order to portray its straight white male characters as oppressed.

“And I think to myself….what a wonderful world”. Louis Armstrong sang about this notion via his classic 1967 song, an ode to witnessing elements of our life that should be but some reminders of exactly what that concluding line of each verse indicates. Now we see our contemporary realities and, just being honest, it makes a sentiment like this seem SO overtly far away….perhaps even impossible….to accept or believe could be. It sounds harsh, but again, so much of what is occurring speaks not to beauty, but bedlam.

Strangers in a crowd, exchanging glances, looking away, continually managing to run into each other then part ways, end up at the same diner, find they've rented the exact same vehicles, and are then made to travel together to learn once more whether they can both find genuine adoration and companionship again. This really does, in so many words, sum up the foundational gist of of this new feature film from writer Seth Reiss ("The Menu") and director Kogonada ("The Acolyte", "After Yang"). Yet, it's all only the set-up for the REAL wonder of everything that happens before, during, and in the aftermath of a magical, meaningful journey.

The fun tricks used in the production design and lighting read extremely well on-screen but hardly fulfill their purpose of trying to inject glamour into a lack-luster story with nothing to say.