Ivory Tower is a documentary that exposes the perils of investing so much money in higher education. At that same time, it fosters credence in the faulty belief that everyone should attend college. There are moments within that offer alternative arteries to education. One is at an isolated “college” in an agrarian setting in California. The other is through an education-driven coop led by Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal.

Of course, there are also references to Mark Zuckerberg, who famously dropped out of Harvard and became, well, Mark Zuckerberg. However, these success stories are often mentioned in passing, and the lament throughout the film is that students leave college buried in much more debt than they will be able to pay off. While true, the film makes student debt look mandatory and its nefariousness is often amplified by placing it next to the earned salaries of the presidents of Ivy League schools, or, most specifically, Jamshed Barucha, whose salary is near $750,000. As president of New York City’s Cooper Union – a school that up until a few years ago was free to all students that were accepted – he earns almost as much as Drew G. Faust, Harvard University’s president.

While few complain about Faust’s salary because, one, it’s Harvard, two, the annual tuition is over $60k, and three, it’s Harvard, Barucha’s earnings are heavily scrutinized because the Cooper Union found itself in deep debt and was forced to charge its students tuition for the first time in its 100-plus-year history. Despite a student occupation of the President’s office, and a blatant protest at commencement, Cooper Union maintained the tuition requirements, Barucha still hold the position of president, and Cooper Union continues to rile in debt.

However, the largest misunderstanding here is that everyone should be admitted to college.

At one point, there is a frightening statistic that 65% of students fail to graduate in four years. The next statistic declares that 44% fail to graduate in six years. The fact that the first stat might be skewed on account of students double majoring or switching majors is not really accounted for, but neither is the standard belief that the students should have actually been there in the first place.

There is a utopic view of college creating the illusion that admission to college = a degree, and subsequently that a degree = a job. To tackle the for equation, the endemic expectation that student move from elementary school to high school to college sets up the belief that college is the next and necessary logical step. However, in recent years, it’s been shown that the average high school graduate leaves with a less-than-3.0 GPA (source). Given the wonkiness and inconsistency of high school curriculums, and the tendency for seniors to take easier courses as they approach graduation, this GPA is rather frightening and hardly prepares students for the assumed rigors of college curriculums.

Doubly complicating a student’s entry into college is the financial burden assumed once they enter the doors. The trite cliché is that you get what you pay for. However, this is inappropriately applied to a college education. There is no guarantee that the sometimes-massive tuition bill you rack up will result in the assumed education or in success. Thus, the assumption that one should go to college sets the expectation that the debt accrued automatically results in the degree desired.

This is further murkied by linking the college life with social activity and the notion that part of college is experiencing life.  This is most blatant when the list(s) of top party schools in the country is release through numerous platforms (source, source, source). While the connection between social life and college is apparent, the published overvaluing of social interaction skews the reason to attend college and can also be factored into the success rate of students in college. Ivory Tower discusses this somewhat false advertisement, but does not investigate the student’s wonky desire to attend college as much as it blames the university for advertising itself as such.

Ultimately, these complications also create a speed bump for those who believe that a degree = the ideal job. While this isn’t unattainable and impossible, it’s idealistic and problematized by colleges flooding the job market with experts that are not. In part, this stems from the difficulty for an educator to fail a student. As a former professor, I can speak to this. It’s not that I feel more of my students should have repeated the course, but it’s not easy to convince them – or upper administration. Colleges and universities are a businesses and without students, they have no consumers. Without student retention, funding is impacted. When one honestly feels that a student needs to repeat a course in order to truly grasp the material beyond the low threshold of 59.9% understanding, there are often meetings with department chairs to prove – most helpfully in writing with Excel spreadsheets and work samples – why the student, whose parents (if not him or herself), are paying a hefty price just to get three additional credits to move closer to graduation will need to pay more money and delay their graduation just to make up this class.

To Ivory Tower’s brief point, this might be why so many of the popular educators on Rate My Professor are emphasized on account of their easiness.

All in all, Ivory Tower offers a valiant fight for the future of our children and the potentially crippling debt that they might incur. However, the multiple issue surrounding education in the United States are too convoluted to summarize, much less remedy, in a 90 minute film. Unfortunately, this compression of concerns casts all of the blame on universities and almost sides with the students who honestly believe that admission to college is a byway for the educations process.

In Tony Scott’s second of four films with Denzel Washington, he explores the body through the politics of safety. A note at the beginning of the film informs us that “There is one kidnapping every 60 seconds in Latin America.” 70% of the victims do not survive. This is predominately true in Juarez, Mexico, a city that has been declared the most violent in the world.

Ironically, Juarez is located right across the border from El Paso, Texas, one of the safest cities in North America. Regardless, those who can afford protection in the form of body guards happily pay for them. And this is where Man on Fire makes its mark. Washington plays Johyn Creasy – not to be mispronounced as “Crazy” – former assassin, now alcoholic who can’t hold down a job. His peripatetic lifestyle takes him all over Mexico, but he finds himself drawn back to into a connection with Paul Rayburn (Christopher Walken), a man whose luxury and excess in the middle of Juarez bespeak a blaring undertone of corruption.

The job that Rayburn offers is as a body guard to the Ramos family (Marc Anthony; Radha Mitchell) and their young daughter, Lupita (Dakota Fanning). This scene is juxtaposed with a well-suited-up, cigar-smoking Mickey Rourke peddling the importance of security to Mr. Ramos, coercing him into purchasing additional protection for peace of mind, to keep his wife happy, and because his current policy will soon expire. The sentiment offered by a none shortly hereafter that it is regrettable that a position like Creasy’s exists is poignant, but it simultaneously explains why it exists. Or rather, it explains the source of violence: man’s indifference to man.

Despite the kidnapping and the violence that riddles Juarez and Man on Fire, the darker aspect of the film is its illustration of isolation. Most often, this stems from distrust and the temporality of relationships. Lupita wants only to have a friend. We sense this in each scene, but it’s also unnecessarily exposited by her mother. And because she’s locked either in her house or in her school for much of the day, she’s relegated to find friendship in the form of her body guard, a man whose only incentive for being around Lupita is a paycheck.

Despite the connection that ultimately forms between Creasy and Lupita, there’s a sadness that the two must be forced together in a system of supply and demand, or that her parents keep her in this situation for the sake of maintaining a fortune. In this situation, financial status trumps the importance of protection that the parents proclaim that they seek.

As a young actress, Fanning was more adult than most. She has a presence on screen that defies the cuteness associated with youth. Her eyes are focused and she appears always in thought. On the one hand, this places her too often in the role of explicator, prompting personal information from Creasy or providing information about the kidnapping rate in Juarez. At the same time, we see that the child cannot always be protected, despite her parents’ fortune or their best attempts. Lupita is aware that she is in constant danger, and with her knowledge of the ever-changing body guards, it’s clear that she understands that their presence does not necessarily equal her safety.

She, like Creasy, exists in the same isolated world of torment and danger.

Nymphomaniac Vol. 2 continues with the foreseeable consequences within any film that deals with the trope of addiction. Joe is, inevitably, going to try to find a higher high – or in this case a resurgent orgasm – and ultimately hit rock bottom, both of which she does. However, there are moments within this second installment that remind us of von Triar’s filmmaking capabilities as well as make the slog through the first volume almost worth it.

For starters, the discourse between Joe (Gainsbourg) and Seligman (Skarsgard) becomes a bit more tenous and Joe begins to point out the digression of Seligman’s interjections. While this is welcome, the need to criticize Seligman’s analogies begs one to wonder whether or not von Triar realized the discourse’s inanity over halfway through the filming. At the same time, there is a connection between Joe’s criticism and the underlying exploration of language employed in Volume 2. As Joe notes, “each time a word becomes prohibited you remove a stone from a democratic society.” This notion concerns Nymphomaniac insomuch as the title itself and its namesake is gender typed immediately, and the numerous men that sleep with Joe and other women throughout the series of films are seen not as sex addicts but as shills to kill time.

Granted, Joe has  a lot of sex, but she is castigated for it more so than any other character. This is particularly evident in her perpetual interactions with Jerome (Shia LaBeouf). We learn in Volume 1 that Jerome took Joe’s virginity at her behest and from that point on, serendipity continues to bring them together. Her transgressions are graphically depicted, while his are not – only alluded to. More interestingly between the two is the birth of their unplanned child, Marcel. The addition of the child is an attempt to lend credence to Joe’s addiction, as he signifies her descent to the bottom. In a much weaker version of a scene from Antichrist, the female protagonist is torn between innate desire and culturally constructed duty as mother. While Antichrist is a better film as a whole, von Triar illustrates the schizophrenic nature of the feminine, forced to be pure, sexually charged, and maternal. The gravity of this commentary is doubled when we learn through Joe’s brief mention that Jerome takes Marcel and ultimately gives him up for adoption. Yet, throughout, Joe is the one castigated and at rock bottom while Jerome flits in and out of the picture – full of his own transgressions and just as poor a parent.

Volume 2’s exploration is also relevant to the etymology of its title. Historically, a nymphomaniac is a women with a heightened desire for sex. While Joe’s escapades might exemplify the extreme – literally a different man for each night of the week – her categorization as a nymphomaniac is manifested as a linguistic signifier than neglects to offer a similarly common signifier for men. What’s also intriguing is the contradiction within the term “nymphomaniac.” Linguistically, a nymphet is a young woman, and its combination with nymphomaniac would suggest an overt attraction to the young woman. In other words, the nymphomaniac would, most likely be a man infatuated with the young woman a la Lolita’s Humbert Humbert. Perhaps he suffers from satyriasis, but he is more accurately a nymphomaniac, or one infatuated with the nymphet. However, with “nymphomaniac,” the desire is shifted from the subject – one who watches the nymphet – to the object – the nymphet, thus turning ones attraction to the object into an affliction for the object.

If both installments were as relevant as the explorations done within Volume 2, Nymphomaniac could become a von Triar opus. Instead, Volume 2 will be the two hours you choose to watch after reading the IMDB synopsis of Volume 1.

In Kill Bill, Vol. 1, Tarantino offered an homage to kung fu films, showing how easily they translate into American cinema, particularly the super hero genre, wherein a hero is created by circumstance. The Bride (Uma Thurman) is shot in the head on her wedding day and her child in utero is taken from her. When we meet her, she feels and taps the metal plate in her head. From here on out, she is only partially human, and her near preternatural ability to wield a katana sword reinforces this notion. Moreover, she’s known only as The Bride – or Black Mamba. Regardless, we don’t discover her true identity until Kill Bill Vol. 2.

Ten years ago, Kill Bill Vol 2. was released, and we met Beatrix Kiddo for the first time in an additionally genre-crossing endeavor by Tarantino. Whereas the first was a kung fu-driven. The continuation transcends to the Western genre, weaving a love story between the younger Beatrix and the older Bill (David Carradine). Their love is both creepily avuncular and intimately palpable. Mordantly, there is affection shared between the two until the very end, and then an understanding that they were destined to do this dance and battle until one expires.

In the first film, revenge is predicated upon the supposed death of The Bride’s baby. But the second develops Bill as more – despite his protests – than a killer and the revenge is more justified than it isn’t. I’m not sure that I support his capping his former lover in the head – he does admit he might have “overreacted” – but she scorned him quite well and led him to believe that she had been murdered. Moreover, she led him to believe that she had been murdered because of him.

While “killer” is both of their identities, we understand that Bill’s interpretation of Beatrix’s deception has to do with a matter of honor and an utmost disrespect and not just jealousy.

And it’s here that Tarantino links the Kung Fu and Western genres, showing that the latter feeds from the former. Simultaneously, he injects an exploration of the superhero genre, positing that all three circulate on misunderstood chaos – or the creation of a perceived bad guy. But often we find that the hero – or in this case heroine – is hardly innocent and has a hand in the creation of the evil. The same can be seen in the first film, where O-Ren’s rise to power is in reaction to her family being slaughtered when she’s a young child. It’s at this moment that she can follow Bill and become a heroine, or be seen as the villain. Through circumstance, namely the introduction of the massacre of the Bride and her wedding party, O-Ren by default becomes the villain, but she is saddled with the curse of omission. Beatrix is just as – if not more – dangerous and villainous. We just don’t happen to understand this until the second volume.

The only certain antithesis to Bea throughout both films is Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah), who tries to off the comatose Bride, kills her mentor, kills Budd, and tries to steal Bill away from Beatrix. So perhaps her death is the most appropriately gruesome because she is the truest villain. There is nothing more sinister than ripping out someone’s eye and inflicting the knowledge that they know they are in for certain death. Their choices are few, and all – without a miracle rescue – lead to perdition. She can either stumble out into the dessert sun or die of dehydration, sunstroke, or by impaling her jugular on a cactus, she could starve to death in Budd’s trailer, or she could be bitten by the very same black mamba that she delivered to the dilapidating domicile.

Ten years after its release Kill Bill Vol. 2 holds its own, and why shouldn’t it – it transcends genres by mooring their tropes together.

Lars Von Trier’s Nyphomaniac Vol. I is, unfortunately, disappointing. Perhaps it’s because it comes on the heels of astonishingly profound films like Antichrist and Melancholia. Certainly, the former has been misunderstood as misogynistic propaganda with a load of shock value and the latter has been largely dismissed because of a comment about the Nazi aesthetic being taken well out of context and circulated around the Internet like the second coming of Mein Kampf. But the films are quite genius in the way that they look at the culturally constructed confinements of trauma and depression.

Nymphomaniac Vol 1 promised to be something similar in the way that it looks at sex addiction. Steve McQueen’s Shame did this a few years ago, but it’s use of a male in the main character’s role diminished social expectations. In the end, the Brandon’s (Michael Fassbender) rock bottom is not the hundreds of porn tapes he keeps stashed away or lascivious way that he looks at his sister. Rather, it’s his venture into what amounts to a homosexual brothel. This is seen as his breaking point and what keeps him from his sister’s side when she needs him most. As a point of fact, Sissy (Carey Mulligan in a much overlooked role), his sister, is seen as the weaker of the two.

In Nymphomaniac, Von Trier has the opportunity to examine how his female protagonist’s sex addiction is manipulated by social constructs because she is in a fact a female, labeling herself from the very beginning as a “bad” or “reprehensible” person. As such, Von Trier does play with the notion that sexually adventurous women will always be seen as nymphos because of their gender and the unfortunate double standards to follow them around. At one point, Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) notes that she “constantly used other for [her] own satisfaction,” a point that overlooks the male’s satisfaction in her need to fornicate. All of her encounters seem fine with the random trysts and often try to seek her out again, but she most often declines.

And it’s in her declination that we see another facet of humanity and sexuality: competition. A handful of men throughout the film cheat on their significant others with Joe, but she holds herself accountable for their transgressions because she thinks of the as, for the most part, pawns in her game of conquest. In this respect, it is no wonder why her name is traditionally a male’s.

Within this character, we witness the triple standard of sex object, sexual being, and prudent woman that is cast upon Joe and her gender, but the film, overall, is bogged down with convolutedness. The visual snippets and split screens that Von Trier employs are at times whimsical and offer a much needed dose of levity in an otherwise somber film, but the fishing analogy that is constantly brought up by Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) is overly pedantic and unnecessary. The explanations and connections between his obsession with fishing and her obsession with sex are obvious and distract from the film’s flow and the Bildungsroman of Joe.

In truth, Seligman is mostly unnecessary. Like Ellen Page’s character in inception, Seligman feels present only to make sure that a) the audience has something to latch onto that is not purely sexual in nature b) the audience hasn’t missed any of the films rather overt metaphors c) to make sure the film isn’t mistaken as a completely pornographic adventure.

Skarsgard is characteristically fine in his performance, as is Gainsbourg whose default stoicism creates a fine amalgam of sexual energy and sociopathy. But the best performance thus far comes from Uma Thurman, the scorned wife of a man silly enough to fall for Joe’s insistence that she “loves him too much.” While Thurman’s character is a bit hyperbolic, she is deliciously and appropriately vengeful. Like Joe, she is in competition, but unfortunately, he character comes to blame Joe for breaking up her family – instead of aiming an equal if not greater amount of vitriol at her unfaithful husband.

Moments like these make Nymphomaniac worth viewing and studying and hopefully Volume 2 will build on this aspect rather than bogging down the narrative with heavy, disruptive exposition.

As the title suggests, Behind the Candelabra, in part, is about deception. The archetype for twentieth-century flamboyance, Liberace (Golden Globe winner Michael Douglas), refuses to age in front of his audience with the aide of numerous plastic surgeries, wigs, and makeup. His lover cum adopted son – sorta – convinces himself that he is the only one for Liberace, despite the performer’s track record with young, blonde men. Similarly, he also convinces himself that he is bisexual, as opposed to openly homosexual.

In this regard, Behind the Candelabra looks at the world of homosexuality in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. In Liberace’s prime – which appears to be between 1956 an 1980 — Liberace revealing himself as a homosexual would diminish his celebrity and cost him most everything. Thus, his agent Seymour (Dan Aykroyd) shells out money to create a fake love affair with Sonya Henie, while he and Liberace file lawsuits against various newspapers for libel. What’s ultimately created here is a culture of deception that begins with having to bury innate desire away from the public eye.

Such intense subversion also pervades the relationship between Liberace (affectionately known as Lee) and Scott (Matt Damon). There’s an overarching creepiness in the relationship that begins with the contrast of a young, toned Scott, and the wrinkled, bordering-on-overweight Lee. Moreover, there is an obvious manipulation that testifies to Lee’s need for control as well as Scott’s inherent callowness. This is never clearer than when Scott agrees to have plastic surgery – at Lee’s behest – to look more like Liberace. Lee’s agenda here is to mold Scott in his image and then legally adopt him as a son. In a way, this publically binds them so that homosexuality can be kept on a back burner, but this is also an agenda ripe with narcissism that threatens to overturn their relationship.

The resulting surgery is disturbing insomuch as Scott ends up looking like a wax figurine with jutting artificial cheek bones and an exaggerated triangular chin with a sloppily-constructed dimple. There’s also a sadness evoked, as this last act is the apex of desperation. Lee has found a replica, and the replica will continue to age, so Lee much move on.

And this is where Soderbergh’s commentary on deception comes full circle. The taboo of homosexuality simultaneously forced Lee and Scott to conceal their true selves, as well as allowed Lee to move without consequence in regards to relationships. Despite the talk of love and being “effectively married,” they are not. Despite the chatter about adopting Scott and leaving him everything up Liberace’s death, there is nothing legal to bind them, particularly since Lee and Seymour could never permit these bounds to come to light – even upon Lee’s eventual death.

While affectionate and sincere, Behind the Candelabra alludes to an additional benefit that stems from the rights for homosexuals to marry: the right for them to get divorced. Cynical, yes, but Scott and Lee’s need to conceal their relationship and its absence in legal recourse does more to protect Lee than Scott when the relationship founders.

Appropriately enough, Behind the Candelabra‘s place in the biopic genre forces us to question the veracity of Soderbergh’s chronicle of Liberarce’s life. The film itself is based on Scott Thorson’s autobiography that documents their five year relationship. As the film depicts, Scott becomes caught in a spiral of cocaine and prescription drug use — thanks to the amazingly unnerving Rob Lowe. And, despite the slight resolution at the end, Scott is the bitter, jaded party tossed out like last week’s less-attractive trash.

Hotels are a fascinating dichotomy. In their erection, they symbolize a cohesive permanence, while each of their subdivided quarters represents separation and temporality – momentary domiciles with perfunctory furnishings and individual use accoutrements like soaps, shampoos, and mouthwashes. Used once these items are thrown away. Used for a day, each room is inhabited and abandoned, like a shell shed for another hermit crab.

Such an interpretation of hotels is part of what impels the creepiness of films like The Shining or Psycho. In each, the space offers a modicum of refuge. The Overlook Hotel in all its opulence appears as a monument of American capitalism and success, while representing a reprieve for “all the best people.” Ironically, it portends to offer a respite for the weary Torrences, although it ultimately impels the father’s spire into insanity. In Psycho, Norman Bates’ inherited motel provides a safe have haven for Marion Crane, one that provides her time to reflect on her transgressions.

In Wes Anderson’s new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, the mass domicile appears as far less creepy than those in the aforementioned films, but there is an overarching cynicism in the hotel’s existence. Characteristic to most Anderson films, each shot is meticulously crafted. And in the case of this film, each scene is carefully subdivided into images of rectangles and squares. Lines are rigid and defining, while curves and circles are hardly present. In this, the hotel becomes akin to the jail-cell doors that appear later in the film, with each room a momentary prison for those who visit. Locked away, each party is isolated.

Ostensibly, The Grand Budapest Hotel is about the burgeoning of an unlikely friendship between the hotel’s manager Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes) and its lobby-boy-in-training Zero Mustafa (Tony Revolori). But more so, the film is about the fetishization of legacy into symbols. Take for example the hotel itself, a testament to opulence in its grandeur, but also a symbol to the inevitably deceased Gustave H., whose ability to afford such a palatial hotel was afforded by the fortune left to him by Madame D. (Tilda Swinton). In her passing, her family – most notably Dmitri (Adrien Brody) summarize her through her wealth and her bequeathing to Gustave the fictitiously famous painting, “Boy with Apple.”

Through the painting, we understand her generosity, but is simultaneously a symbol of her wealth and her spite against her family — she always lived under the assumption that one day her apparent heirs would murder her. And through her relationship with Gustave – which was sexually convenient for him – we understand how lonely in fact she was.

We find similar fetishization in the very beginning of the film when a young girl approaches the bronze bust of an author in a cemetery. In her hands, she holds the fictional novel, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and it is upon the author (Tom Wilkinson as the older version; Jude Law as the younger) that she looks. The tale she is most familiar with is affiliated with the author; however, the author (the older version) notes that the “public brings the characters” to the author; they don’t just materialize in a writer’s imagination. Thus, the fame from which he derives is actually taken from listening to the older Mustafa’s (F. Murray Abraham) relate his story of his relationship with Gustave. That said, the story with which the girl is familiar is twice altered: once by Mustafa and once by the author, and it is unfortunately ironical that the author is the one cast in bronze as the monument of fame, whereas Gustave remains unassuming in life and a character in the novel.

Within this look at authorship, Anderson also offers commentary on the writing and re-writing of history, begging us to question who and what is worth remembering and whether celebrity should be the prize ultimately celebrated, or whether it should be the various components that lead to one’s celebrity.

In 2012, MTV’s Buckwild founded a genre that could one day be referred to as “degenerate porn,” wherein an isolated group of nine teenagers from West Virginia act crazy on a regular basis, refute the role of adulthood and avoid responsibility at all costs. As per usual, this MTV-produced show was 98% scripted, thus – much like Jersey Shore – the wildness referred to in the title resulted in few consequences or repercussions.

If Buckwild was the scraping of the bottom of the reality television barrel then TLC’s Breaking Amish is the destruction of the barrel and vicious tilling of the soil underneath. Much like Buckwild’s ostensible exploration of an unfamiliar subset of American culture, Breaking Amish exploits the Amish as fodder for our apparent amusement, shuttling four Amish to New York City and tempting them with the frenzied bombardment of Manhattanite culture.

The concerns kindled here are aplenty.

If we assume that these Amish are in fact as innocent as they portend to be, then moving them from virtual nothingness in the way of technology and modern stimulation into the hectic daily life of New York City is bound to be overwhelming, causing tears and confusion. Of course, this is exploitation at its best. However, the jettisoning from one extreme to the other also assumes that the world directly outside of Amish country is New York City, a place that eats the bravest and toughest skinned of people to begin with. It is a beautiful, culture-rich, ever-changing metropolis, but is one that can be unforgiving to those unfamiliar with it.

In a sense, the reality show itself is offering a very minimal glimpse of reality for the Amish participants and the majority of series fans. Therefore, the show is double deceptive. It is at once portending to offer a glimpse of reality for the Amish as well as fabricating a harshly contrasting reality for the viewers.

Something else to consider here is the payoff. The series’ agenda is to shuttle the inexperienced to the big city, but the question posed from the very beginning is whether or not the participant will choose to leave the Amish way of life or remain in NYC. What exactly does inundating the Amish with constant stimulation, tattoos, alcohol, sex, and – most of all – attention do for them? As TLC fits the bill for most of the experiences and negates the need to find a job, make a living, or search for an apartment, how much reality are the participants actually experiencing?

How much are they actually being prepared for, and how much could this possibly inform their life-altering decision? – assuming that their initial decision to take a break from the Amish life doesn’t already result in their infinite shunning. Much like the fabrication found in reality-dating shows – The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in particular – the Amish are omitted from the requirement of daily life, whether it be the grind of New York City, or surviving in a smaller urban or semi-rural area. In other words, being transported to New York fails to make the Amish a New Yorker any more than it teaches them, gradually, how to survive outside of their comfort zone.

Adore is, at its core, inconceivably silly. Despite characteristically strong performances by Naomi Watts and Robin Wright, the film is on the border of pushing the envelope and devolving to ludicrousness. As life-long friends, Lil (Watts) and Roz (Wright) are inseparable. Their childhoods spent together floating on a raft in the water is only a testament to the island that they both inhabit. Shortly after the film begins, Lil’s unseen husband perishes and we witness his funeral, with Roz at her side. Also flanking them are their respective sons who grow with the same camaraderie that Roz and Lil share.

However, there’s an awkwardness on afternoon as the two middle-aged women lay on the beach, watching their sons surfing. The boys’ muscles glisten in the sun and salt water, and prompts Lil to observe that they are like gods. The foreshadowing here is rather palpable, so when Ian (Xavier Samuel), Lil’s son, sleeps with Roz, it’s less a surprise and more of an anticipated moment to move the movie along.

The same can be said for the supposed retaliation that Roz’s son Tom (James Frechville) takes on Ian – or his mom? – when he sleeps with Lil. Or, maybe he’s taking his revenge on Lil seeing as that he has vested interest aside from “doing to her what Ian did to” his mom.

The convoluted nature of this x-shaped narrative hardly makes the film provocative; rather, it devolves the film to a boring realm of creative bankruptcy. I suppose it’s understandable why Tom is hurt by Ian’s actions, but the one glaring omission from this narrative is that Roz is still married. We meet her husband. He seems a bit distant emotionally – and physically in that he takes a job in Sydney thirty minutes into the movie – but it’s never clear why he deserves to be so readily cuckolded.

Then there’s the allusion to Roz and Lil’s potential homosexuality, something not lost on Roz’s husband who notes that the women are sort of “lezbos,” and Lil who repeatedly refutes that they are “lezbos.” Thus, at times, the film tries to convince us that the two women sharing each other’s son is a way of reliving their own youths.

But again, there is little interest in Roz’s infidelity – at least as far as her husband is concerned.

But there is the perfunctory need for both women to swear that both transgressions were one time occurrences that can never happen again. Why? Because this is the apparently necessary reaction, but there is never any real discussion as to why the transgressions are wrong.

It’s as if we’re supposed to assume that our moral compasses all point in the same way. This is not to suggest that friends should start dating with and sleeping with their peers’ mothers. However, if a film is going to attempt to be provocative and explore an often-unopened box – Y Tu Mama Tambien notwithstanding – then there should be some discourse or some substance beyond the perfunctory: this is wrong because it will most likely be seen as awkward and uncomfortable for the audience.

Despite the change in directors, Hunger Games: Catching Fire maintains a similar coolness and eeriness imparted by the first. While the first installment created a Nazi-driven subtext, the second emphasizes President Snow’s (Donald Sutherland) and Plutarch Heavensby’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) darkness. The suffocating imageries of both jungle and ocean add to the feelings of isolation and apprehension that run through Suzanne Collins’ novels.

At the same time, this second film becomes the perfunctory bridge to transport the audience to the upcoming third installment. All to faithful to the book in this regard, the Catching Fire offers little in the way of character development, only offering the assumption that, in the Capital, there are varying degrees of evil that span from evil to more evil. On the whole, this does not detract from the entertainment value, but positions this sequel as a two hour adventure before the conclusion.

Similarly, the love story is something out of a situational comedy: Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) both love Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), who, for the most part loves Gale, but might have feelings for Peeta. I suppose Katniss’ affection for both comes from various shared experiences, but it’s unclear how love can exist in a country divided into districts that are comprised of competitional hierarchies within each district. This is not to say that our world is currently devoid of this similar structure, but we are talking about a country that has apparently gone through some sort of nuclear holocaust and, for the most part, is part of a dystopia.

In other words, the love story is forced and is used to reel the audience through a film that offers little in the way of progress and more in the way of suspense.

Despite this, the meat of the film is its hyperbolized look at the convergence of government and media and the ways in which constructed images both rule and lead to destruction. The Hunger Games and the Quells themselves are a form of destruction that satisfy humanity’s nature to conquer and destroy. While sad to watch for those closest to the victims, the violent process is sanctioned, thus made culturally acceptable and a part of the norm.

The temporality of the Games also serves as a distraction. The focus effectively shifts from everyday penury to district property. Districts 1 through 12 each have a vested stake in the games insomuch as they have someone or some two to root for, but their potential victor’s return offers nothing to the district itself aside from momentary notoriety and the ability for each denizen to say, “I knew Katniss when…” And in this, we see a critical look at our culture’s obsession with celebrity, as well as the way in which combat becomes a game. Catching Fire aptly posits that there is a constant “us against them” within districts and between districts. Most disturbingly, it shows how each conflict and Game becomes a distraction from the nefariousness above.

To see this as an honest view of world government is too cynical even for my uber-pessimism, but the separation between those in charge, those who feel they are important, and those who are viewed as the least important is a profound one.