a west coast premiere for Alberto and the Concrete Jungle

Hey guys,

Some new things:

1. Alberto and the Concrete Jungle is making its west coast premiere, March 5-14, at the Portland International Film Festival. Another virtual fest, meaning you can watch from anywhere, any time, during those days. Full lineup here.
   

2. an obsession with absence.  I've tried those sensory deprivation chambers -- a fine experience, but my bed's pretty comfy too.
   
   Some nice quotes in the piece:
   
   "Our imaginations, after all, are limited by the platforms that dominate the distribution of culture; we feel more than ever that we’re in control of these streams of content, but in reality we are in thrall to the rules and patterns they create."
   
   "No one seems to want anything; there is no enthusiasm for desire in this culture, only the wish that we could give it up. It’s an almost Buddhist rush toward selflessness with the addition of American competition and our habit of overdose: as much obliteration as possible."
   
   "Positions of resistance are neutralized. Ennui itself is a brand: In December, Pantone announced two colors of the year for 2021; the first was Ultimate Gray."
   

3. I don't eat like this too much, but I frequently think about eating like this too much.
   

4. The divide seems to be growing more and more between my tastes and what the elites deem artistically important. I'm trying to pinpoint when it really started to become noticeable.  Maybe 5 years ago?  The 40-Year-Old Version is an Indie Spirit Award nominee, yet it almost feels like a bad kind of student film... stilted dialogue, some hammy performances, simplistic message, comedy without any punch, and an unnuanced story.  But it's deemed culturally viable, and that's enough to overlook everything else...  I checked it out for some spoken word.  But it doesn't hold a candle to the strong documentary Louder Than A Bomb.
   
   Then there's Promising Young Woman, for which Carey Mulligan is nabbing both the indie and National Board of Review accolades.  And she's very good, but can you award her when the role itself falls apart because the story itself is tonally uneven and contrived? This film wants to make a cunning badass of her, yet only goes halfway. And it wastes time building up a cutesy romance for her that doesn't really deepen the revenge story... and while it does make one interesting point that men all seem to revert to their horrible nature and repeat past behaviors they claim to have left behind, it's way too black and white a depiction of the world.
   
   At least I agree about The White Tiger.
   
   I remember when Ramin Bahrani came to my college class panel, and I remember bobbing my head listening to his artistic philosophy in contrast to one of the other panelist's. And I remember, either there or in a director's commentary track, he talked about his love of Taxi Driver and specifically how Scorsese and the most minimal crew would cram into the cab throughout the night. That, to Bahrani, is filmmaking. I remember seeing the slice-of-life films he started his career with -- Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo -- thanks to Roger Ebert's recommendations. All wonderful. 
   
   The White Tiger is great because of the book it's based on, but also because it's Bahrani's funniest and most stylish, taking a page from Goodfellas... and then, in the second half, dark and troublesome, taking a page from Scorsese's antiheroes in Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. In ways, it's the film Joker could've been. And still, it's entirely its own urgent creation, observing the details of India's caste society and the harsh distinction between the haves and the have-nots.
   

5. Birds may be self-aware

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Chris