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 three home runs I expected “Anora,” Sean Baker’s newest movie, to leave the ballpark, especially after it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. But it’s just a triple. I don’t know why baseball seems like such an apt metaphor for Baker’s oeuvre—this movie literally has nothing to do with America’s pastime. (Also, the Yankees lost the World Series in pretty humiliating fashion this year, so maybe I’m just coping with that.) Still, it’s hard to think of another 21st century director who has delivered so consistently over the past decade, and so I guess in a way Baker seems like an incredibly gifted athlete. Anyway!
“Anora” is oddly a ton of fun despite its thoroughly disheartening subject matter, mostly due to star Mikey Madison’s riveting, sympathetic portrait of an erotic dancer who gets involved with the son of a Russian oligarch, only to be pulled back from the edge of a life-changing union with brutal suddenness. Of course there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had thanks to Baker’s generous, humanistic storytelling instincts, especially in the way he allows Madison’s Anora and a motley crew of handlers to scramble all over south Brooklyn on a haphazard manhunt. This manic chase is driven more by the characters’ inner compasses than by plot contrivances that demand them to be in certain places at certain points in the story, as lesser movies would dictate.
This organic quality is key to Baker’s stories, but it falters here more than it has in the past, first in a subplot intended to humanize a would-be thug in Anora’s orbit that signals its intentions too loudly, too obviously and too early. More glaring is a third act appearance by the aforementioned oligarch and his wife, who seem to be annexed from another kind of movie entirely; they’re almost utterly devoid of the naturalism and humanity that Baker consistently bestows on virtually all of his characters. In truth the third act feels surprisingly lethargic as a result, but nevertheless Baker and Madison deliver a stunner—a home run, if you will—of an ending. It’s a virtually wordless scene that communicates untold volumes of emotional depth with shocking efficiency. I felt sincerely moved by it.
Roundup
Here’s the full list of all twelve movies that I saw in October. This is the latest in my monthly round-ups of what I watch. You can also see everything I logged in September, in August, in July, 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. In fact you can click the titles below to see the capsule reviews I’ve written there for just about all of these films.
“Reality Bites” (1994) ★½ Rewatched. I like almost everyone involved in this movie, but I hated this when it was released and I still hate it now.
“City Lights” (1931) ★★★★½ A long series of beautiful gags from Charlie Chaplin and then a final scene of such wonderful, exquisite tenderness and human understanding that feels as emotionally impactful as almost anything the cinema has ever produced.
“Mr. Klein” (1976) ★★★★ Alain Delon gets caught up in a Vichy-era case of mistaken identity that gets more and more terrifying with each scene. A disturbingly effective reminder of how fascism has no sympathies, and also a really, really depressing movie to watch this election season.
“Roxanne” (1987) ★★★½ Rewatched. Steve Martin is still radiant in this adaptation of the Cyrano De Bergerac story that feels more idyllic than ever, mostly because it exists entirely before the Internet.
“Repo Man” (1984) ★★★ This cult classic starring Emilio Estevez as a punk turned repossession agent is all verve and attitude, like a downtown art performance in the Reagan 80s. Still effective despite a scattered script.
“Red Rocket” (2021) ★★★★ Director Sean Baker’s follow up to “The Florida Project” is even more vibrant and alive in a way that most movies can’t even dream of being. Its story is genuine and hilarious and then, before you realize it, mortifying.
“Modern Times” (1936) ★★★★ Rewatched. Charlie Chaplin makes a delightful romp out of a distressingly bleak worldview.
“Anora” (2024) ★★★½ Also a ton of fun despite thoroughly disheartening subject matter.
“Red Rooms” (2023) ★★★½ A Quebecois serial killer thriller à la “Zodiac,” but updated with dark web vibes and technophilic verisimilitude. Gripping and disturbing.
“Saltburn” (2023) ★ An overly long, poorly calculated class drama from Emerald Fennel. Its biggest goof is assuming that audiences can find professional weirdo Barry Keoghan to be sympathetic.
“Christmas in July” (1940) ★★★ A pretty cute Preston Sturges fairy tale handicapped by two unremarkable leads. Genial but sleight compared to the director’s other works.
“Woman of the Hour” (2023) ★★½ Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut truly understands how women experience physical threat, but that core is surrounded by a shambles of plot threads and context setting.
