The Zone of Interest

 "Yes, they are very clever"

A man and his family live a lovely little life in a lovely little house with a lovely little garden. The sun shines, they play in the lake behind the house, they plant flowers and shoo the dog away from the table. The pool has a slide. Visitors come. There are birthday celebrations and bickering between siblings. Business meetings are had, orders are placed for clothing and chocolates. The parents love each other very much and they love their children. Everything is idyllic. 

That family is the Hoss family, led by Rudolf Hoss, the man who ran Auschwitz, which is behind their garden wall. He learns about new crematorium science. He talks numbers and efficiency, up to 12 thousand new Jews a week. If his wife, Hedwig, wants a new coat, he will have the perfect one taken from a Jew recently torn from their home and have it wrapped for her. She likes the coat, but the lining will need to be fixed. The lipstick in the pocket is a bonus. 

The Hoss family hardly hears the pistol shots anymore. Hardly sees the constant plume of smoke in the air from ever-running ovens. Hardly hears the trains pulling in. Hardly hears the screams. We hear all of it. We see none of it, only the smoke in the corner of the screen. Fresh fires light the sky orange briefly. Prized gold teeth are counted by children in their beds. 

Jonathan Glazer has made one of the more haunting films that I've ever seen. This a cold movie. Brightly lit and freezing cold. My stomach hurt. I couldn't cry. I just sat horrified. 

The Eras Tour

"Welcome to the Eras Tour. My name is Taylor"

Know what? Fuck it. Call me a Swiftie, see if I care. Wanna watch the Eras Tour? Come to my place, we'll count sequins and have a great time. 

This film is three hours long and encompasses ten albums and 17 years of music, which is impressive for someone who's only 34. 

She's pretty cool, you guys. As a person, not just a musician. She sued a guy for groping her during a photo op, and she won, and that fucker had to pay her...one dollar. She sued him for one single solitary dollar to shame him and show her power. So there. She's re-recording her first few albums so she can actually own and license the songs, as opposed to her former record label having all the say. So there. She wrote a song about her grandma. That is a sweet and baller move. 

She stomps her way through this show in Louboutins and ten sparkly outfits. There are multiple shiny guitars, a mossy baby grand (maybe it's a grownup grand, identifying pianos is not my forte), and an upright piano involved. Her songs are...pointed. The 10-minute "All Too Well" off of the Red album stands out here. "Casually cruel in the name of being honest" hits kinda hard. I'M TALKING TO YOU, JAKE GYLLENHAAL; GIVE HER BACK THE SCARF. "Don't get sad, get even" and boy howdy does she ever. That said, she drops zero names other than Blake Lively and Ryan Reynold's children. Evermore's "Tolerate It" is kind of beautiful, and not only because of the extremely handsome dancer playing the cold-hearted boyfriend. The "Reputation" era is the closest that she gets to being sexy, body-rolling to her angriest songs. Dancing is not what I think of when I think of Taylor Swift, and maybe that's wrong; I'm new to this. She keeps up with her dancers pretty well in a vaguely awkward way which is very charming. She is #relatable.

The shots of the enormous crowd are very sweet; there's a woman hysterically crying in the first five minutes, people are hugging each other, everyone's wearing friendship bracelets (awwww), there are multiple children and one particularly adorable child gets a big hug and kiss from Taylor. I call her Taylor because we're friends now, we can be casual. 

"Folklore" is her first pandemic album, and marked a growing-up moment for her, whether you believe her when she says it was written as a series of characters or believe that it's about an illicit affair with Karlie Kloss, which is how it was pitched to me. I'm always here for salacious stories. 

I'm rooting for the anti-hero. To flip one of her lyrics, her reputation has never been better.