Charlie Kaufman is undoubtedly among my favourite artists. Two of the films in my top ten – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York – come from his pen, and his collaborations with Spike Jonze aren’t far behind. His work is defined by an enticing creative restlessness, realised in the intimidating thematic…
As a portrait of David Foster Wallace, The End of the Tour is mostly a failure. Along with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), we follow Wallace’s 1996 promotion tour for Infinite Jest, but we learn less about him from the film than we could divine from reading his justly-celebrated novels and essays. Jason…
“It’s stupid to stake your life on table tennis. I just don’t get it. It’s revolting.” So says Makoto “Smile” Tsukimoto in episode three of Ping Pong, an anime about people staking their lives on table tennis. As this quote might suggest – and as its unconventional animation confirms – Ping Pong isn’t the sort…
(Note: this post does not follow the normal 200-word word limit of this blog) First up – I’ve been pretty slack when it comes to posting these awards. This is mostly because I’m still venturing my way into the blogosphere (if that’s even a word), and partly because it was basically impossible to do an…
When I established this blog, I intended to semi-regularly review novels. Instead, I’ve spent the last six months reading through the same novel – David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, a thousand-page epic set in the near future and concerning a film so entertaining that it drives anyone who views it to permanent, drooling catharsis. The…
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