The film is very bad - Levinson ’s heart clearly isn’t in the direction, the writing garbles everything interesting about Crichton ’s novel, and the floor of the spacecraft glistens like the rug of a Chuck E. Not only is the ship from Earth - it’s American! (I find the insinuation absolutely, stupidly invigorating: that well into the age of multidimensional space travel, Blue Diamond will remain in business producing smokehouse-flavored nuts.) Sphere As Allegory
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The ship is the first mystery solved - they think it’s extraterrestrial at first, but Hoffman finds a dead guy in the captain’s chair clutching a pack of Blue Diamond smokehouse almonds. Jackson, Sharon Stone, and Liev Schrieber, and the burger-shop sci-fi story sends them to a deep-sea base where they find a crashed ship, an otherworldly sphere, and an alien being that communicates with them through the base’s computer. The scientists are played by Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. It’s an old favorite of mine, though it’s not at all a classic, and I’m sure only about five people even remember it exists. On the surface, Sphere - a 1998 flop directed by Barry Levinson and adapted from Michael Crichton ’s hit sci-fi thriller - is perfect for lockdown: Four scientists, trapped in a bubble thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface, slowly go mad. Still, I wanted to take this space to write a reappraisal of Sphere, of all things. Comfort cinema is a lazy form of culture journalism. But I can’t afford Merlot, I’m not paid for my criticism, and I don’t have the reach of your average writer for The Washington Post.
#Michael crichton sphere kindle series
Yes, I am hypocritical here - I binged Disney Channel’s Dog with a Blog and wrote at length about the series and its politics back in July.
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In major newspapers, the culture sections are choked by pieces about “comfort cinema,” as though we can spend 2020 ignoring politics, blocking out anti-police protests, and disregarding the pandemic in favor of sipping Merlot on our beds and watching Sex and the City while “essential workers” bring us Chipotle. Those last two slots have yielded some truly dreadful writing, most notably of the “red wine and chill” variety. And in October, for Bright Wall, Dark Room, Josh Spiegel wrote a funny, incisive essay about class in Columbo that’s inspired me to maybe eventually probably someday watch the show.Ĭulture writing, in general, this year seems to fall into several categories: the reappraisal of old, maybe forgotten, classics guilty, “escapist” binge-watching and the proclivity to reassess work in light of our current circumstances. In August, The White Pube ’s Zarina Muhammad wrote a review of Gilmore Girls that is charming, a little pissed off, and brilliant. And some great pieces come from this model, especially this year.
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Many smaller publications - including this one that I love dearly - rely on freelance or unpaid writers and don’t have to produce new film reviews and up-to-date culture writing all the time. Few new releases and the malaise of coronavirus lockdown have inspired or outright forced many critics to revisit old favorites or to seek out films they hadn’t yet seen.
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Film journalism spaces this year have been living in the past.