Manhattan (1979)

tl;dt

Seinfeld Beta*

With the cast portraying mundane and pedestrian existences, delineating activities of no interest to anyone anywhere, sketching the lives of people we care nothing about as they pursue activities of no consequence to themselves, of no consequence to their immediate surroundings, and of no consequence to the world at large; conducting celebrations of self-hood in the vain hope that there is something to celebrate – as they perform these series of solipsistic dances, simultaneously but not interactively, performing them for a group of friends and comrades specifically selected to feign interest; self-selected in fact to supply mutual support for the terminally irrelevant, the entire purpose of the movie, intentionally or unintentionally, is to provide a virtual train-wreck for those members of the audience who can’t turn their eyes away, can’t modestly avert their glances from the shame and humiliation of those discovering that they are the only ones laughing at their own jokes, this self-same audience casting about for relief, searching, perhaps in vain, for deliverance, hoping to be rescued, but at the same time knowing that there is no hope, that there will be no rescue, no deliverance, no last-minute appearance of the cavalry from over the hill, when, lo and behold, they notice two things that have been there all along, two things there for the audience in their time of need: the cinematography and the sound track!

Go watch a Wong Kar Wai/Chris Doyle flick.

*How big is the pedophilic market, anyway? Sure, you can fuck a high school girl, and you can fuck a high school girl while ruining her life, but what is the point of ruining her life after you have stopped fucking her? Is it to show how pathetic you are when it’s been demonstrated a dozen times over? When your moral negligibility is beyond refutation? And why not let her escape, why throw her away to London, perhaps a bigger cesspool than Manhattan? The Humanity!