Movie Mentions: My Husband, the Cyborg, Inherent Vice & Small Things Like These
My Husband the Cyborg (2025)
Directed by Susanna Cappellaro. 1.5/5 stars.
If the subjects of a documentary are unintentionally but categorically unlikable and annoying, I think you have a problem. I get that Susanna Cappellaro’s My Husband, the Cyborg isn’t meant to fully endear us to her husband Scott and his dumb quest to have metal electrodes (or whatever) surgically implanted in his body, but I think he comes off way more privileged and conceited than she intended. His entire quest (again to have metal electrodes – or whatever – surgically implanted in his body) is so rife with vapid spiritualism that I’d sooner vomit than hear him moronically wax philosophical about the world around us (or rather him – because everything in his life is all about him) for one more minute. His wife (who directed the film) is a much more appealing participant in the story, but I consistently longed for her to kick her husband in the nuts and tell him what an idiot he was before slamming the door in his face and leaving forever. She does her best to understand his “journey” but I really wish she would have used the film’s runtime to make fun of him instead. Now that would have been something.
Inherent Vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. 2/5 stars.
Here’s the deal: I don’t get it. I fully admit that Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel of the same name is completely over my head, and I think I’m okay with that for now. I’m aware that Pynchon’s novels are dense and deliberately esoteric (something I respect and often enjoy in the media I consume), but for now, I have no choice but to sit contentedly in my ignorance. With varying degrees of absolute adoration, I have always enjoyed the work of Mr. Anderson and found myself disappointed I couldn’t enjoy this, but I will make you a promise. I will read and understand not only Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, but also some of his other celebrated works. Once I have accomplished this feat, I will return to Anderson’s filmed version with a new perspective and, with luck, love it as much as I do his other films. This is my vow to you.
Small Things Like These (2024)
Directed by Enda Walsh. 4/5 stars.
Cillian Murphy’s art house follow-up to his Oscar-winning performance in Oppenheimer is a powerhouse, and on some levels, much better than Christopher Nolan’s hero worshipping ego trip. Based on Ireland’s real life secretive, exploitative, and often abusive Magdalene laundries – nun-run workhouses for poor women and girls – Small Things Like These packs a hell of a punch. Set around Christmastime 1985, Murphy plays Bill, a working class family man who discovers a young girl locked in a coal shed at one of the laundries he delivers to. The laundries and their practices are a known secret but no one in the community dares speak against the church, thus their century-long existence. (In 1993, 155 unmarked graves were discovered on the grounds of a laundry in Dublin. The last laundry closed in 1996.) Director Enda Walsh uses Murphy’s naturally quiet stoicism to great effect which not only enhances the cold, gritty, coal-caked world the film inhabits but also exemplifies the torture Bill feels over keeping quiet about something he knows to be wrong. Small Things Like These is indeed a small film, but its scope and the ramifications of its subject matter have affected generations of Irish women and families. I’d like to think Walsh and Murphy made at least a small dent in the world’s awareness of that.
