Movie review: "The Disaster Artist"

dir. by James Franco
written by Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

Quick rundown for those not in the know: In 2003, an enigmatic weirdo named Tommy Wiseau released his directorial debut, a strange, inept drama titled The Room, in which an obvious director surrogate - of course played by Wiseau himself - has his life fall apart as everyone he knows "betrays" him. The film, which played in an extremely limited run, was soon the target of mockery, and gained a sizable cult following over the years in large part due to internet popularity and ironic midnight screenings. Ten years later, actor Greg Sestero, who played a key role in Wiseau's film, collaborated with a journalist on a memoir regarding the production of the film, featuring numerous stranger-than-fiction details, and now we're here, with a film adaptation.

When The Disaster Artist works best, it's emphasizing Wiseau's secretive past and the surrealism of the filming process, and much of its humour comes from the astonishing strangeness of its real story. It's filled with great performances and some fairly solid comedic timing, and particularly in its energetic second half, the film is genuinely riveting. But Franco and his writers have no perspective on Wiseau, and despite emphasizing many of the dark edges in this real-world story, the film settles on an upbeat, self-congratulatory tone which at once feels like a mismatch for the material and like bland self-congratulation. The Disaster Artist, as entertaining as it can be, only occasionally recognizes the real value in this story, and its ultimate positivity feels undeserved.

Movie review: "Lady Bird"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. and written by Greta Gerwig
Teenagers can be terrible. Last year's The Edge of Seventeen understood that, and mined it for a lot of pathos and humour, presenting a character who's just beginning to see the world outside of her own mind. Greta Gerwig's directorial debut, Lady Bird, plays on many of the same themes, but imbues them with even more detail and specificity, with a more ambitious lead character and a much wider thematic range. It's just as funny, and boasts both more pathos and more irresolution, and by a wide margin it manages to eclipse last year's already wonderful entry in the genre.

But that's not to say that this is an iteration on already-explored themes. Here, Gerwig shows potential to be just as accomplished a writer and director as she is an actress, with a nuanced script which boasts loads of specificity, strongly developed characters, and powerful insight into the relationships between parents and their children. Specificity has a way of revealing universals, and as much as Lady Bird works simply as an uproarious teen comedy, the way it ends isn't with a big laugh but with one final note of soulful contemplation. This is a wonderful movie.

Movie review: "The Florida Project"

THROND'S CHOICE

dir. by Sean Baker

written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch

A couple years ago, Sean Baker took the festival circuit by storm with his thrilling, energetic comedy-drama Tangerine, a film about a transgender sex worker getting back at her cheating pimp/boyfriend. Tangerine featured a street-level, D.I.Y. vibe: its cast was comprised entirely of non-professional actors, and it was shot on three iPhones. Baker's new film, The Florida Project, has switched to conventional film stock and features Hollywood star Willem Dafoe, but it has the same down-to-earth authenticity which marked his debut, with naturalistic acting from what's still mostly a cast of unknowns, and the same delightful sense of humour.

What's different in The Florida Project, more even than the cameras and Dafoe, is an increase in ambition. Tangerine was largely a comedy, but while the new film is still very funny, it has much more on its mind than just its subtle progressive politics. The Florida Project is an often poetic look at the shadow of decadence, a portrait of people living on the margins and both the forces and cycles which work to keep them there. Its build is a little slower than that of Tangerine, but its cumulative emotional power is much greater, and if the earlier film demonstrated Baker's promise, this new one codifies him as an auteur to keep an eye on. 

Movie review: "My Little Pony: The Movie"

dir. by Jayson Thiessen
writ. by Meghan McCarthy, Rita Hsiao, and Michael Vogel

The appeal of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comes from a combination of factors. Aside from its lighthearted tone and cute art style, its characters are surprisingly three-dimensional, and its best episodes can be quite funny as well. This show's cult following didn't come out of nowhere, and much of it comes down to the show's main themes. To me, the most important part of Friendship is Magic's appeal is that so many of its stories revolve around the main characters needing to move past their own insecurities. This show does an excellent job with audience identification, even outside of the target audience, simply because it fleshes out its protagonists and treats them with empathy.

On the other hand, My Little Pony: The Movie is asinine and derivative, and while there's several factors in its overall sloppiness, perhaps the greatest is that it trades the show's stories of insecurity for slapdash adventure cliches, seemingly assembled at random. What little remains of the show's soul is scrambled by the slapdash execution, which is too busy hopping from formula beat to formula beat to sufficiently develop even one of its characters, and it's all brought down by a truly wretched sense of humour. Perhaps it would be difficult to make a My Little Pony movie which really taps into the show's main strengths, but on the other hand, there's no reason it had to be this bad.

(note: spoilers follow)

Game of Thrones episode review: "The Dragon and the Wolf"

Image from IMDb.

THROND'S CHOICE

dir. by Jeremy Podeswa

writ. by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss

The new blockbuster iteration of Game of Thrones is maybe the most popular the show has ever been. It's hardly surprising: newbies and longtime viewers alike can revel in all the fan service, and all the superficial crowd-pleasing has made it an easier watch than ever. It fills the fantasy niche and offers a level of spectacle which you rarely get outside of a movie theatre. All the things which have made it less distinctive and less sophisticated also make it more accessible, so of course it's only ever gotten more and more popular. 

And you know what? It's not so bad. A quickened pace, some great special effects, and what's now seven years worth of character development make for a show which is no longer great art, but is still a lot of fun. Season 7's finale, "The Dragon and the Wolf," slows the pace down, and while it still rushes some crucial moments, it also has several of the season's best scenes, and clarifies the show's intriguing thematic conflict. It took me a while to be convinced, but this new Game of Thrones is alright. 

Game of Thrones episode review: "Beyond the Wall"

Image taken from IMDb.

dir. by Alan Taylor

written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss

This year, Game of Thrones has thrived on balancing its blockbuster impulses with the nuances of its character relationships. When that balance works, we get "The Spoils of War", where everything falls into place and even easy narrative tricks like big battles and small reunions can be emotionally evocative and deceptively deep. For the most part, it has worked very consistently, and while season 7 is still eager to please, it's been intelligent enough to elevate its pandering in ways which season 6 wasn't. 

Unfortunately, "Beyond the Wall" neglects a lot of that intelligence in favour of brainless spectacle and contrived tension, caring more about action and epic sweep than the grit and intricacy which once defined this show's main appeal. The story has been gearing towards epic blockbuster fantasy for some time now, and it's still often good at delivering the bombast, even when it's illogical and predictable as it is here. But when even the recent years of the show have accomplished so much more than this, it's hard not to be disappointed. 

Movie review: "Wind River"

written/directed by Taylor Sheridan
It's hard to begin a discussion of Wind River without acknowledging the recent pedigree of writer-director Taylor Sheridan. Over the past two years, Sheridan has emerged from a supporting role on Sons of Anarchy to write exquisite scripts for Sicario and Hell or High Water, both of which suggested him as a major talent in film writing. When news broke that he'd be directing a film as well, anticipation was high; after all, when your first two films were that good, how could they not be?

The surprising thing about Wind River, then, is that it's actually Sheridan's weakest script by some margin, boasting less nuanced characterization, uneven dialogue, and some dubious survivalist philosophy. Instead, what makes the film thrilling is Sheridan's assured direction, emphasizing a harsh, freezing sense of place and crafting from that not only great tension but great action as well. Above all else, it possesses a taut, bleak beauty which allows it to transcend the deficiencies of its script and become compelling in spite of itself.

Game of Thrones episode review: "Eastwatch"

Image taken from IMDb. 

dir. by Matt Shakman

written by Dave Hill

To the disappointment of some fans, Game of Thrones can't be epic action every week. After last week's poignant reunions and exciting battle, this week we're back to table-setting in an episode which is predominantly exposition and setup for storylines which are going to pay off later. As always, the show does this very well, and this season's exposition benefits both from a breakneck flow of information and the nuances of character relationships from over six seasons of development. 

But even considering that, "Eastwatch" is much more exciting than similar episodes from earlier in the series, and part of that is because there's simply more novelty to the storylines set up here. With Cersei facing imminent defeat and Jon desperate for help against the White Walkers, the show has finally regained a sense of political intrigue, and even the slower scenes retain a sense of momentum and importance. Best of all, even though the show leans heavily on major revelations this week, it clips through them so quickly in pursuit of its novel plot threads that they don't get in the way of good storytelling. 

Pocket reviews: Week of August 11

In lieu of longer reviews, here's some shorter critiques of the films and television series I watched in the past week. This week: Atomic Blonde, A Ghost Story, Detroit, and Archer: Dreamland.

Game of Thrones"episode review: "The Spoils of War"

Image taken from IMDb.

dir. by Matt Shakman

written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss

Reviewing a serialized show on an episode-by-episode basis can be challenging, as you won't really get a satisfying narrative arc within any single hour of the season. Perhaps this is why so many people writing about these shows call their pieces "recaps" rather than "reviews," as it's easier to relay what happened and insert snippets of editorializing here and there than to nitpick at individual character interactions or technical qualities which are common to the show in general. Individual episodes often have different directors and writers, but especially in the case of Game of Thrones, narrative arcs move slowly enough that critiquing specific episodes can come down to picking at little details. 

And yet, I can still tell when an individual episode is above the rest, and "The Spoils of War" is where this season really kicking into high gear. There's emotional reunions, powerful moments, and even a few fun one-liners, and it all concludes in one of the show's most exciting and spectacular battles to date. There's still some clunky exposition here, but this week the show has decided to even further emphasize the nuances of character relationships, and if that doesn't quite compensate for the show's continued lack of intrigue, it's starting to come close. 

Game of Thrones episode review: "The Queen's Justice"

Image taken from IMDb.

dir. by Mark Mylod
written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
Game of Thrones's recent push towards the finish line has led to a lot of episodes consisting primarily of exposition and foreboding. Small character moments and striking outbursts of violence, often the bread-and-butter of the show, still appear, but have tended to be buried under a lot of straightforward table-setting. This isn't to say that the first two episodes of season 7 were at all bad - both were fairly solid for what they were - but the real meat of the story only begun midway through last week's episode, and much of the season's setup could be awfully dry.

Because of that, the quiet, lingering tension of "The Queen's Justice" feels genuinely triumphant, focusing entirely on dialogue and performance while focusing primarily on a small handful of storylines. Narrative progress is only incremental, and yet the episode is so patient with those small jumps forward that each one feels earned, and in some cases even relieving. It's the later scenes, which more briefly cover the other storylines, which feature more surprises, but this week, Game of Thrones made foregone conclusions feel thrilling.

Game of Thrones episode review: "Stormborn"

Image taken from IMDb

dir. by Mark Mylod
writ. by Bryan Cogman
Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that this season of Game of Thrones has consisted largely of buildup. Next season will be the show's grand finale, and the showrunners have a lot to establish if those final episodes are to be big enough to satisfy. As it outpaces George R. R. Martin's novels, it increasingly abandons their intricacy in favour of more conventionally pleasing elements, with character reunions, answered questions, and big battles being the most common of these. It's good at what it does, but it's also become less essential and less singular.

While "Stormblood" follows the usual formula of reunions, answers, and battles, its table-setting has much more narrative momentum than that of the premiere, it continues the show's championing of little character moments and begins to provide some tension in this season's narrative. It's still a bit minor, yes, but a show as focused on broader narrative as this needs these episodes from time to time, and this one is handled pretty well.

Movie review: "Dunkirk"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir./written by Christopher Nolan
In recent years, superstar director Christopher Nolan has fancied himself a technician. The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar were undeniably theatrical experiences, and now, his Dunkirk is the first major film to be shot with IMAX cameras. Nolan has gone as far as to refer to his films as "theatrical experiences," and would implicitly prefer if you saw this new one on the format which he designed it for. However, the risk of designing a film around technology is that it will lose its power in a lesser format, so for all of Dunkirk's acclaim, I approached with trepidation.

In truth, appreciation of Dunkirk is likely to come easy no matter what format it's experienced in, as while the sound and image of the IMAX cinema serves to enhance the film's cacophonous, claustrophobic beauty, those elements are built into the film enough that they will come across clearly no matter how diminished they may be. Dunkirk is a harrowing, disorienting, and genuinely astonishing experience, and it successfully recreates the sheer panic which must have accompanied this evacuation. It looks and sounds like a masterpiece, and had it just a little more of a human core or fully resisted patriotic sentiment, it would be there. As is, it's merely excellent.

Movie review: "War for the Planet of the Apes"

dir. by Mat Reeves
written by Mark Bomback and Matt Reeves
2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes held a unique place in the summer blockbuster scene. Despite certain issues such as uninteresting human characters, it was nuanced and ambitious in ways that few of its contemporaries were. It depicted a tense situation between the titular apes and the world of men, and offered both positive and negative actors on each side, and boasted a lot of depth in its characterization and ambition in its narrative which are still rarely seen in films of this budget. It was a dark, somber, and long blockbuster, but it paid off with narrative profundity even if it wasn't always much fun.

The final installment of this trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes, is still impressive for its sympathetic characterization and soaring ambition, and it's easily the most technically accomplished film of the trilogy, but somewhere between the two films, something was lost. War is a film which strives for narrative depth while shying away from anything which might compromise its black-and-white morality, and while the film is still gorgeous and more exciting than its predecessor, it still takes itself too seriously to justify its simplicity.

It ain't bad, but I wish I saw what the rest of you see in this.

Movie review: "The Big Sick"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Michael Showalter
written by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon*
Romantic comedies have a reputation for being contrived and artificial. They're associated with a very familiar set of tropes and plot structures and are often filled with silly reasons that the main couple needs to remain apart until the end. These movies are popular, but they're also frequently regarded as fluffy, disposable, and mindless.

The Big Sick is different. Unlike the standard Hollywood romcom, its twists and turns are based on reality. It's an authentic story in a genre which is so often phony, a funny movie but also a heartfelt story with a melancholy undertone. What its protagonists go through isn't easy, but those tribulations are not only believable, they feel true. It's that authenticity which makes the film feel so genuine and which gives it all of its emotional power. It's not packed with gags or comic scenarios. Instead, it's funny because it's witty and honest, and it's great because it's willing to take itself a little seriously.

Game of Thrones episode review: "Dragonstone"

written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss
dir. by Jeremy Podeswa
HBO's Game of Thrones has been struggling to find its way without its source material for a season and a half now. Season 5 suffered under the weight of excessive brutality and the uninvolving Dorne storyline, and season 6 frequently resorted to feel-good pandering. Going forward, HBO has reduced its order from 10 episodes to 8, and it remains to be seen whether this will serve to reduce the show's bloat and repetition, or if it'll simply cramp the storytelling.

As always, the premiere is not the right place to judge the quality of a season. "Dragonstone" is dedicated primarily to setting up the season to come, and as a result is packed with expository conversations and minor developments. But these minor developments show promise, and the episode ditches the hacky sentimentality of season 6 in favour of moments of quiet observation. Ultimately, the world and characters of Game of Thrones are still compelling enough to make even its slowest patches enjoyable, and "Dragonstone" satisfies most of all by setting almost every one of the show's storylines into motion.

Spoilers follow.

Movie review: "Spider-Man: Homecoming"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Jon Watts
One day, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will consume us all, but for now, it's an astonishingly consistent and frequently delightful if overly serialized blockbuster series which has yet to produce a proper failure. Its third phase, in particular, has achieved a sublimely even quality across its four entries so far, all of which are compelling in their own way. At this point, the Marvel stamp is commonly viewed as a stamp of quality, and although none of these films are high art, they're entertaining and intelligent blockbusters which deliver light thrills just as well as character drama.

Spider-Man: Homecoming, despite its peculiar release arrangement with Sony, is not only on par with its phase 3 brethren, but rises up to be quite possibly the best of the lot. It's a simpler story than many of the studio's other offerings, but that's to its advantage, as it avoids the increasingly oppressive seriousness of the universe's most significant entries while retaining a sharp wit and a low-scale intimacy. It's fun like Marvel films always are, but it's also charming and fresh to a degree which is less common in this franchise.

Movie review: "The Beguiled"

dir. by Sofia Coppola
Allegedly, Sofia Coppola was drawn to remake The Beguiled by a desire to gender-flip the narrative, to make it an examination of the experience of white women during the American Civil War. I've not read the source material or seen the prior adaptation, but by reputation it's a sleazy bit of Southern Gothic pulp, and reversing the emphasis of that to a feminine viewpoint seems like a challenging undertaking, especially when attempting to build on sexual repression and boredom, which are inherently difficult emotions to represent on screen.

Coppola's effort is intriguing and occasionally strikes a resonant note, but her efforts to make the material more dignified and respectable have sapped it of all life, and the new film's needlessly brief 93-minute runtime comes at the expense of necessary context which would have greatly enhanced its intuitive storytelling. There's some merit in expecting the audience to bring prior knowledge to project onto the film, but combined with the flatness of the direction here, it's resulted in an often dull viewing experience whose merits are largely subjective to the point of invisibility.

Movie review: "Baby Driver"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Edgar Wright
Edgar Wright spent the 2000s slowly rising to superstar status. Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and The World's End established him as a powerful voice in action comedy, and despite leaving the project in 2014, Marvel still built on his script for their Ant-Man film. However, he hasn't had a directing credit since 2013, and so when his follow-up to The World's End was revealed, it was a big deal.

This new film, Baby Driver, has a strong claim to being his very best to date. A very different film from the "Cornetto trilogy," it repurposes genre tropes around a thrillingly unique premise and perhaps an even stronger sense of style than Wright's prior works, and excepting the very occasional overwritten line, it's thrillingly idiosyncratic and beautifully stylized, boasting sublime action and some of the most satisfying rhythms of Wright's entire career.

Movie review: "Okja"

dir. by Bong Joon-ho
Okja is not only the successor to Bong Joon-ho's excellent 2014 film Snowpiercer, but also Netflix's first stab at the festival circuit. The streaming service had made stabs at art films previously with Beasts of No Nation as well as numerous Sundance acquisitions earlier this year, but Okja's position in the Competition for Cannes's Palme d'Or was a big enough deal that its very inclusion proved controversial.

It's an absurd controversy, frankly, as a film is a film regardless of where it's viewed, and Bong's reputation is enough to have earned that Competition slot on its own. Indeed, Okja's environmentalist moralizing suits it to film festival awards just as well as its exciting spectacle suits it for widespread popularity, and it's no surprise that many were immediately won over. Unfortunately, as exciting, funny, and technically accomplished as Okja is, it's all brought down by heavy-handed, one-sided moralizing which at times borders on manipulative.

Movie review: "Wonder Woman"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Patty Jenkins
It's odd to consider that it took three years for Warner Bros. to continue its DC Extended Universe after premiering Man of Steel in 2013. Last year's Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad arrived with the intention of competing with Marvel's own cash cow, but both premiered to largely negative reception, and the DC films became associated with a forced bleak tone and poor editing. And yet, the latter also showed Warner Bros. changing course, as last-minute reshoots attempted to add more humour and create a lighter tone. (I haven't actually seen either film, so I can't attest to either's quality.)

Wonder Woman is DC's second film to have been released since Batman v Superman's critical failure, and as significant as its status as the first female-starring superhero movie in over a decade is, almost as notable is that this is the first genuinely optimistic film in the DCEU. Not coincidentally, it's also a massive step up for the franchise, an earnest, big-hearted, and even inspiring movie which is as funny and exciting as the best of Marvel's offerings and which fully understands why these heroes are so beloved. If this is what DC's offerings are gonna be like from here on out, I'm all in.

Movie review: "Alien: Covenant"

dir. by Ridley Scott
When Ridley Scott first returned to the long-decaying Alien franchise with Prometheus, the results were controversial, and the film itself suffered from numerous script deficiencies in spite of its ambition and intriguing thematic questions. As a prequel to Alien, Prometheus wasn't especially serviceable, containing very few references to the film it was allegedly attempting to add context to. However, despite eventually devolving into dumb thriller territory, it was a film with a clear vision, even if it failed to resolve any of its philosophical questions, and a sequel ought to have refined the film's rough edges and added more clarity to Scott's vision.

Instead, Alien: Covenant sees the director halfheartedly rehashing his 1979 original while forgetting what made that movie special, and even his attempts to continue the philosophical musings of Prometheus come across as half-formed doodles above all else. Covenant doubles down on its predecessor's script issues while refusing to answer any of its questions, and while Scott retains some of his astonishing visual sensibility, it's embellished by bad CGI and pandering visual references to the original. The result is an asinine slasher film with a shaky thematic core, and it's yet another nail in the franchise's coffin.

Movie review: "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"

BEST NEW FEATURE
dir. by James Gunn
Despite their acclaim, the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are fundamentally corporate products. They're expensive, rarely challenging, and formulaic, and their more unique entries are usually only weird by the franchise's own standards, as was the case with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. However, as it's become more and more reliably successful, the franchise has begun experimenting with its formula: Captain America: Civil War revolved its sprawling spectacle around a thoughtful storyline which bordered on autocritique, whereas Doctor Strange spruced up its familiar origin story with a pinch of psychedelia.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 doesn't have the first film's consistency of humour or momentum, but it retains much of what made its predecessor so charming, and adopts the strengths of both of its "phase 3" bretheren. If its character drama doesn't reach the heights of Civil War, it's still one of the thornier entries in the MCU, and its visuals even surpass the benchmark of Doctor Strange to set a new high point for the series. If sequels are expected to be bigger and bolder, Guardians 2 also takes the much more admirable route of being weirder.

Thoughts on: "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild"

(Played on Wii U)

97 on Metacritic. That's unhealthy. Scores that high breed unmanageable expectations, and they indicate a uniformity of opinion which could make it hard to find a review to identify with if you're less fond of the game. Going into Breath of the Wild, I was unable to shake the expectations which the absurdly glowing reviews had bestowed upon me, and all of the claims that it "rejuvinated" the series had little meaning for someone like me who thinks that 2011's Skyward Sword is one of the best Zelda games to date, and who prefers a guided experience to a free open world. 

So while I still don't consider this the greatest of the Zeldas, it says a lot about its quality that I still loved it in spite of those biases. Spoilers will follow.

Movie review: "Logan"

BEST NEW FEATURE
directed by James Mangold
written by Scott Frank
Logan will be the final movie starring Hugh Jackman in the titular role. As the third film revolving around the character, it seeks to provide something of a sendoff both to Wolverine himself and to the universe around him, and for this purpose takes inspiration from the Old Man Logan comic as well as from old Westerns. The film is a more personal and intimate affair than preceding X-Men entries, and it's exactly because it's so much smaller in scope than the average superhero movie that it's so immensely satisfying.

Movie review: "John Wick: Chapter 2"

BEST NEW FEATURE
dir. by Chad Stahelski
written by Derek Kolstad

When 2014’s John Wick became an instant cult classic, it wasn’t merely for its beautifully choreographed action but also for its hinted mythology and the partial reluctance of the title character. Like many of the best action movies, it had an identity all its own, and was concerned with very little aside from what was necessary to set up and deliver its thrills. Three years later, this sequel takes everything which made the original great and doubles down, making for a film which is bigger, bolder, stranger, and at times even more poignant than its predecessor.

My Top 10 Best Movies of 2016

The prevailing wisdom about 2016 in the movies is that it was a bad year, but that might be overstating it. True, it's a step down from the highs of 2014 and 2015, and the summer season was catastrophic, but this year wasn't without its positive trends, and furthermore, even a lesser year isn't without its standout films. Here are the ten best which I saw.

Movie review: "Silence"

dir. by Martin Scorcese
Silence is a film which Martin Scorcese has been trying to get made since the 1990s. An adaptation of Shūsaku Endō's 1966 novel of the same name, the film dramatizes the oppression of Catholics in Feudal Japan, following a Portuguese Jesuit mission. What drew Scorcese, an auteur who frequently deals with themes regarding faith, to the material is obvious, and Silence is remarkable both for the obvious passion which went into its creation, as well as for its nuanced themes on the nature of faith, sin, guilt, and arrogance. However, at nearly three hours, the film is a monotonous and frequently unengaging sit, and while its fascinating concepts and enormity of vision make it worth seeing, it stands on the line between art and homework.