erikzmenno

Ocean is a monstrous film. You're watching the most stunning footage, but it's shown and edited far too quickly (perhaps to attract the TikTok youth?). The imagery is breathtaking, but before you can truly immerse yourself in a scene or atmosphere, it's already been cut. Aside from the jittery pacing, the film is mostly a monstrosity because of the tear-jerking, superficial neo-classical music that plays incessantly underneath everything. It never gives you a moment's rest and prevents the visuals and information from ever really getting close-keeping them at a safe, documentary-like distance.

If they had asked producers like Sven Laux, Christina Vantzou, or Biosphere to create the soundtrack, and had shown 30% of the footage instead of 1372889%, the message might actually have landed. I couldn't make it through to the end.

I'm a huge fan of period dramas. There isn't a film or series-no matter how obscure-that I haven't seen. But in recent years, I've started skipping a lot of them... I don't know exactly what it is, but I just can't watch them anymore. As soon as the atmosphere of a historical era is established, all sorts of characters start appearing on screen who clearly don't belong in that time period. It's not just historical inaccurate-it's also annoying: there's something pushy about it that disturbs and irritates me and completely pulls me out of the area. I want to enjoy a medieval or 19th-century setting without being pestered by fake 21st-century idealism.

I sometimes wonder when we'll see a version of Schindler's List with Chinese actors, or Roots played by white people. Every time some token black character with a crown on their head strolls across the screen at a 14th-century court, I'm thrown right out of the film. It's like watching a movie set in the 17th century and seeing a car drive by in the background.

The result is: I now skip them. This one too-skipped. Go ahead with your political preaching. I care too much to sit through that kind of deception.