is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired in 2013), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “How They Got There: Interviews with Digital Designers About Their Careers”and “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
After a pretty rough start to the summer movie season, “Deadpool & Wolverine” rode into theaters to save the box office—and exhaust the heck out of me.
It was exhausting trying to figure out why I wasn’t laughing while the rest of the theater was cackling like mad. “Am I the asshole?,” as they say. It was exhausting to try to reconcile the glaring irony of this limp satire: the reality that acknowledging the hollowness of the super-hero genre while indulging in every single cliché of the genre isn’t clever or subversive at all. It’s just self-defeating.
The continued success of Deadpool as a product is a symptom of something really, terribly wrong with our culture. It’s a sign that we all think that if as consumers we “self own” with some meagre level of irony it somehow negates the fact that corporate culture has supplanted real art. That’s not just capitalism but capitulation—it’s worse! Objectively, demonstrably worse! It’s like we’re all trapped in a horrible shopping mall and someone offers to show us how to escape, but the escape route is really just a soulless shopping spree in that same godforsaken shopping mall.
It’s disheartening to the extreme, but I couldn’t figure out whether it was better or worse that Hugh Jackman, bless him, was honestly trying to deliver a real, honest-to-goodness, thespian performance. He wasn’t just cashing a paycheck (here I’m looking askance at Wesley Snipes) or trying to skate by on his flagrantly limited range (and here at Mr. Ryan Reynolds). No, Jackman was taking the whole thing rather seriously and legitimately working his butt off to deliver bona fide pathos. I felt so sorry for him. All he’s got to show for this miserable medicine show is tons and tons of money.
I also asked myself, “Wait a minute. Is this any worse than a Mad Magazine spoof?” I came to the conclusion that yes, it is worse, because you can read a Mad Magazine spoof in about five or ten minutes. This movie actually runs thirty-eight hours and seventeen minutes, if you measure it by the years off of your life that it takes.
Roundup
Here’s the full list of all twenty-two movies that I saw in July. This is the latest in my monthly round-ups of the movies I watch. You can also see everything I logged in June, in May, in April, in March, in February, in January, and summaries of everything I watched in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
“Blue Steel” (1990) ★★ It’s hard to take the idiotic script for this policier by director Kathryn Bigelow very seriously, but ultimately one has to respect how seriously Bigelow herself takes it.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (2024) ★★★★ Rewatched. While my family went to see “Inside Out 2,” I took a moral stand and went to see this a third time instead.
“Seconds” (1966) ★★★½ The third in director John Frankeheimer’s so-called “paranoia trilogy” asks how a middle-aged white guy might live his life if he could start it all over again. First half convulses with energy like a downed power line. Second half loses its way. But the whole thing was shot beautifully by cinematographer James Wong Howe.
“Tomboy” (2011) ★★★ A young girl moves to a new city and decides to present herself as a boy. The amazing director Céline Sciamma makes this very disquieting drama feel like a harrowing thriller.
“The Karate Kid” (2010) ½ I convinced my kids to watch this and we all regretted it.
“The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) ★★★★★ Rewatched. One of the urtexts of film noir. Saw it projected in a theater for the first time. Brilliant.
“Throw Down” (2004) ★★ A beautifully shot, ornately digressive and ultimately confounding Hong Kong action movie that’s also a tribute to friendship, the works of Akira Kurosawa, judo, and, uh, Gillette razors.
“Targets” (1968) ★★★ Peter Bogdanovich’s debut movie is horrifying tale of mass murder and an aging Hollywood star. Clearly influential for Quentin Tarantino, though it’s not nearly as memorable.
“The Driver” (1978) ★★★★ A stripped down thriller with some of the best stunt driving I’ve ever seen and the heart of a meditative drama from Bresson.
“The Three Musketeers” (1993) ★★ Very, very nineties, but if you’re willing to excuse that, and turn off your brain, it’s kind of fun.
“Crime Story” (1993) ★★ Jackie Chan tries his hand at a gritty, serious police drama, but it feels like he’s stifled and held back, until it feels like he’s yearning to be in a Jackie Chan movie instead.
“Twisters” (2024) ★★½ I never intended to see this but sometimes you just go see a “Twister” sequel whether you like it or not.
“The Big Chill” (1983) ★★★★ People seem to hate this movie but it’s got a great script and great performances and it’s about human beings. Can we have more like this?
“Missing” (1982) ★★★★½ A stunning, stunning political thriller that turns into a wrenching personal drama, from notoriously thoughtful lefty director Costa-Gravas. Recommended.
“Bonjour Tristesse” (1958) ★ A pretty dimwitted, preachy melodrama that’s a low point for director Otto Preminger. But its greatest offense is a really, really bad poster from Saul Bass.
“King of the Hill” (1993) ★★★ An early drama from Steven Soderbergh about a young boy left to fend for himself in a Missouri hotel room in the Depression. Shows plenty of promise, but the director can’t quite tip it over into a true classic.
“The Trip Across Paris” (1956) ★★★ Two strangers haul four suitcases full of black market pork across occupied Paris in 1942, starring Jean Gabin. Genial if a bit moralistic.
“The First Slam Dunk” (2022) ★★★½ I did not know that a high school basketball game could be animated as beautifully and with as much emotional resonance as it is in this Japanese anime.
“Sorcerer” (1977) ★★★★½ Rewatched. Director William Friedkin does so many things right, makes so many impeccable choices, pulls off so many artistic triumphs, it’s almost unbelievable that this masterpiece exists.
“The Beast” (2023) ★★★ A truly bizarre, often adventurous, mostly but not entirely successful hybrid of costume drama, horror, future shock and Lynch-ian weirdness from director Bertrand Bonello.
