The Deepest Breath
How long can you hold your breath? A minute? Maybe? Kids time these sorts of things when swimming, but it's not something most of us think about in our waking lives. But I know that when I swim and misjudge the time it takes to surface, panic sets in almost instinctively. The body wants to live. It takes a particular personality to ignore the body's demands in apparent life-or-death circumstances. Stephen Keenan and Alessia Zecchini are two such people. Zecchini's first words in The Deepest Breath, Laura McCann's documentary about Keenan and Zecchini's goal to become legendary deep sea free divers, are about how she's never associated diving with death. I'll grant a writer is more likely to associate everything with death. But I cannot understand plunging into the darkest depths of the earth while holding your breath for minutes at a time and passing out before you can return without thinking of your own demise. Some of us, I suppose, see a Way where the rest see a void. Continue Reading →
Bird Box Barcelona
SimilarA Christmas Carol (1938), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Apt Pupil (1998), Candyman (1992), Chopper (2000), Die Hard (1988), Dragonwyck (1946), Empire of the Sun (1987), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Heaven Is for Real (2014), I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016),
Jackie Brown (1997) Kiss the Girls (1997),
Live and Let Die (1973) Love and Honor (2006), Man on Fire (2004), Mystic River (2003),
Rebecca (1940) Shaft (2000) Starship Troopers (1997), Summer Things (2002), Swimming Pool (2003), The 39 Steps (1935), The Bone Collector (1999), The Handmaid's Tale (1990),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Right Stuff (1983), The Road (2009), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Wild at Heart (1990),
Okay, fine, Bird Box Barcelona isn’t exactly a sequel. It’s more of a continuation, as Netflix gets a belated start on making a franchise out of 2018’s Bird Box, a perfectly fine but unremarkable film that inexplicably became a smash hit. Smash or not, five years is a long time, so you might need a refresher course. Much of Earth’s population has been decimated by malevolent beings with visages so emotionally overwhelming that anyone who looks at them immediately commits suicide, and the survivors are forced to navigate what’s left of the world with their eyes covered, lest they see whatever “they” are. That’s really all you need to remember. Continue Reading →