APOCALYPSE(S)

It was a weekend of films with existential ponderings, writ apocalyptic and large in one and personal and smaller (though no less significant) in the other. And it felt like "old times" when The Wife and I would watch three or four films each week (and usually at least one in a movie theater).



Don't Look Up, directed by Adam McKay. It's discovered that a planet-killing comet is approaching earth. Of course, our current culture can't quite get its act together before the end of the world. But before that happens we get to see great performances by Jennifer Lawrence as the astronomy grad student who discovers the comet and by Leonardo DiCaprio as her astrophysicist professor. The satire in this feels all too real. It tells me that we probably are indeed doomed.



The Lost Daughter, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. A professor of Italian literature in translations, played expertly by Olivia Coleman, is on vacation in Greece. But her time of relaxation and renewal is interrupted by another family and their interactions throughout the next week. All of this is complicated by the professors complicated relationship with her own daughters and her abandonment of them, as she tries to discover herself. Although this film ended with a glimmer of hope, it still felt like a long journey to possibly see it to fruition.