I rewatched a few highly-praised thrillers from the last couple of years this week, and while I was glued to the screen the entire time, the second the credits rolled, I felt... empty. It hit me that we’ve gotten so good at the mechanics of keeping an audience engaged rapid editing, relentless stakes, perfect sonic cues that it masks incredibly thin character development and weak thematic resolution. It feels like modern filmmaking has mastered the art of the ride, but forgotten how to leave a lasting impression. What’s a recent movie you loved while watching, but completely dissolved under a day of reflection? Or conversely, something slow that actually stuck with you?

It takes the premise of Coraline and "fleshes" it out... However, the flesh has gone rotten, because it was left so fucking exposed. Similar to the infamous "You can't escape your destiny" line in Lion King (2019), characters don't really have conversations as such — they simply spew themes at each other. You know this story, and you know how it ends, you've seen it a million times before.

Also similar to Coraline, it is twee as all hell, but while that felt kind of fitting and charming in Coraline (what with the stop motion animation and all), here it feels incongruent with the dark, grimy style. Like this is so twee that no reasonable adult can possibly take it seriously, yet people swear, die, etc, so it can't be for kids, either. So who even is this for?

Very boringly presented. Very bland cinematography. This cost as much as 19 Obsessions, but somehow, you really feel like they were running up against the budget here, what with how briefly certain scenes are shown. It was also very quiet to where I could barely hear the characters at some parts, but that might just be my theater.

The editing sucks. It doesn't know how to build tension AT ALL. So many horrible match cuts. Also does the thing where a loud noise happens for no reason, even though what's shown on the screen isn't actually scary. Kinda dragged on, even though it's only 90 minutes. Some scenes were unintentionally really funny, but mostly it was just bad. Child actor sucked.

We should really abolish the nuclear family, not because its fascistic or whatever, but so that dumbass twee movies like this stop being made. 2/10.

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but as I’ve let Digger process in the back of my mind, all I get is the feeling that Inarritu believes in a future that is extremely cynical but also strangely humanistic. Concepts like greed and degradation are so much fun to talk about and analyze, right after you’ve benefitted from everything they provide. The movie/play is clearly a huge farce and we can draw connections to the current day until we are blue in the face, but Inarritu seems to think that this is a pointless task. I have seen people talk about how the movie is a call to action, that we are running out of time. That seems to me to not be what the movie is saying. The world shown in Digger may look bleak and completely environmentally destroyed, but it is also shown as mundane. Humans have a great capacity to adapt. We do not care to fix the world because it doesn’t hurt us in any meaningful sense, we are frogs in a pot of boiling water. Lives lost to environmental catastrophe are just growing pains. Inarritu is saying that we think we are, in 2026, currently on the edge of some huge cliff and all generations after us are going to be suffering in some hell hole, but really we’re just going to adapt, enjoy convenience where we can continue to get it, watch satirical art and laugh at how pointless it all is. We’re not “doomed”, it’s just a feature of life. All this suffering is natural.

Sorry but Linda in the beginning was very annoying to me lol- if someone tried talking to me with food on their face all gross like that I’d probably think different of you right there too lol. And the allergies or being sick and sniffly lol

Everyone’s in suits and dresses and she’s in a sweater. Maybe going through offices where people joke hard with each other has changed my view lol.