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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Commercial use algorithms must be designed to omit certain types of content. Even though you can opt out to get your feeds in chronological order without interference and you can also make a feed based on your favorites. These are in effect the safety measures social media companies have created in the wake of our political dystopia in America married like a Siamese twin with an alternate reality of a party which uses lies and deception.Ever since we began congressional hearings on social media the companies have been working to improve the service by removing extreme content that violates “public standards”, but no plans were laid out to regulate for ‘civic standards’, politics or mental **** scary ai, artificial intelligence, we all should worry most about are social media algorithms which create specialized content to serve advertisers. Five years after the epic documentary film and we still haven’t addressed the elephant in the room, and it bears repeating. At one point the film which should be required viewing for students, a fictional teen girl smashes a locked box to get her phone locked up on purpose by her mom for only one hour and her son tries for a week without his phone; both instances showcasing the extremes of online addiction. Through these dramatizations guided by interviews with many of the original social media algorithm creators the harsh reality of modern-day technology is clearly evident but the solutions and regulatory needs are not **** all have our own distinct social media feeds, separate and individual, and when manipulations increase polarization for profit, it becomes dangerous especially when its used just for your attention. Information and news can never be politically motivated in such an environment because it creates harmful interest groups. Content that is deliberately a deception should be considered political and should not be part of any algorithm reliant on holding your attention to sell ads. The psychological consequences will be studied for years to come but what is most urgent is how it effects politics. It is unethical for social media platforms to monetize any content that contains socio political information. While of course free speech and political content should never be banned; people should be able to search and find any type they want legally, but that content again should not be used in algorithms that are monetized to maintain your attention in order to play you ads; this by definition becomes a political ad even if there is no person or political party physically purchasing the feeds. The examples of governments paying social media to help them win elections by manipulating viewers is appalling and egregious. Democracy should never be caught up in a sale of any kind. That is the existential threat. Manipulating your attention for market uses I believe are fair game while obviously coming with other types of psychological problems that should be further studied and regulated. Likewise online platforms should never be able to block search content; the internet must be free from commercial obstruction. They are calculating our emotions and actions online, analyzing what we consume for advertisers.Political ad buying should never be a part of this and must be illegal on social media, period. Hours of congressional Hearings didn't even mention this as a viable solution. At the very least political monetization altering motivations and the habits of users should be illegal on social media platforms.Solutions at end of the documentary film give some other essential tips on how you fight the algorithms like not clicking on recommend videos, but the problem is not with savvy people that could reprogram their feeds, it comes with mammoth size groups clustered over specific interests or beliefs regardless of merit. If they are clustered because of commercial access to attention, then they become divided even from their own true beliefs whether they realize it or not. It’s clear that the information age has made smart people smarter and dumb people dumber, but we can not allow mob rule to be strengthened by commercial proxies focused on profit and self-interest.

How many movies do you know don’t revolve around the redemption of the main character? Paterson is one of the rarest films which are purely medicinal in its observations. The main character here is more acknowledged than redeemed except for one line that is brought back to him in the end about the value of his words but it’s more a fine tuning or a warning than a redemption. In the end he learns to stay true to himself without needing to be a self-involved, isolated hermit focusing on the power or energy of goodness. He is the embodiment of Zen as his meditation is in observing nature and he embraces humanity as it appears in everyday life, and he is ready for action ironically with few words even when confronting danger. Jim Jarmusch is an American treasure. His touch as an auteur is always deep, soft, and meaningful with moments of intensity that expose the values of the human condition. He finds the magic of intimacy churning out timesless works of art. In Paterson he out did himself creating a class work of spiritual realism. Adam Driver plays a bus driver named Paterson in the ghetto of Paterson, although Jarmusch offers only hints of poverty and potential violence. At one point Paterson in Paterson jokes about giving up his dog to a car full of menacing delinquents. The former marine in life and in the film, with his stoic bravery embraces a faith rooted in positive assumption, as if manifesting a reality of honor among thieves. Don’t get dog jacked he tells the bulldog tied outside a bar alone for anyone to nab. Is the dog safe in Paterson New Jersey? For Paterson perhaps the dog is safe even if he is stolen because he is apart of nature but Jarmusch as if the voice of God then challenges Paterson. Is a beautiful child left alone outside while waiting for her mother nearby safe? The child like Paterson sits and writes poetry with the same energy he feels. Like a clueless boy wandering outside his broken down bus, they are comforted by Paterson as his circle of peace protects them. What is your circle of peace and understanding? Can you begin to appreciate the beauty of grace in its simplest forms? Can you embrace the frequency of divinity? Even in the face of extreme danger Driver stares shockingly aware in a masterclass of subtle introspection, yet we know and feel what the character is going through without words. His wife played delightfully by Golshifteh Farahani conveys constant kindness and joy even when reprimanding the bulldog. A chess playing bartender Paterson frequents, played by Barry Shabaka Henley adds tremendous weight as his character much like Driver’s holds onto a ‘Zen of character’ playing off Driver's understated intensity. Such few words, often repeated, forces viewers to appreciate poetry and how God or if you'd like how the universe or divine energy, communicates in a poetic nature. This film is a conversation between angels and a Zen Buddhist bus driver. It teaches and inspires the viewer to not only appreciate poetry but grace and peace in an attainable place mistakenly reserved for hermits and the rich who can afford to create peaceful spaces and timeless contentment. The pace of Paterson feeds us with the suspense of this peace in the unknown, with fleeting glimpses of danger and inaction as complacency. Some of the most meaningful diaglouge spoken by extras or left unexamined exposes a frequency tied to nature; like crows cawing when an acquaintance confesses his rebirth from the death of his heart. Ego is absent in Paterson, and we are all better for it if you pay attention to what nature and the soul reveals in the frequency of simplicity without the chatter or "leashes" of modern society constantly harping for your attention. Read some poetry, get your cues from faces, and find your identity in the amount of space you hold dear away from your smart phones and vanity.

Going in to see the Oscar-nominated film “The Brutalist”, I was really hoping to have my mind changed about brutalist architecture, yet the opposite occurred which in an ironic way would make this a great film but sadly this was not the intent of the filmmakers. The extremely well directed film highlights the gut-wrenching power of one of America’s greatest actors, Adrian Brodie. Brodie conveys such subtle depth and insight, like Meryl Streep he makes every scene he is in a true introspective experience. We all relate and learn from his depiction of pain and anguish, yet the writer director Brady Corbet and co-writer Mona Fastvold not only failed to resolve or even properly explore his dilemma, they presented it in an erroneous presentation catering instead to beautiful cinematography and minimalist expression lazily mirroring and championing a dangerous societal precedence, brutalist architecture. Brutalist architecture is a post WWII minimalist design structure that exposes construction elements in favor of inexpensive assembly attempting to find beauty in simple stream like lines and bold abstract idealism. Brody’s fictional main character László Tóth, based on several real-life brutalist architects, finds beauty using light and grandiose size, like 50 foot ceilings in small rooms making impractical purely aesthetic spaces meant for reflection or spectacle. His greatest work, an enormous community center uses light to shine a massive cross in a giant empty chapel over concrete and a small marvelous marble altar. While the attempt at minimalist beauty is admirable, its steeped in rejectionist symbolism of do-nothing defiance. During the last scene at an honorary event Toth’s niece gives a speech praising her uncle’s work depicting how the rooms and tunnels within his massive community center echoes triumphantly prison rooms and **** death camps. The idea being that the soul and spirit of Jewish survivors like Toth are defiant in the face of oppression and tyranny in the timeless work like a memorial to the victims. At the end of her speech and the film she says his work, which we mostly saw only in photos on walls during sweeping pan or over the shoulder shots, is defiantly “about the destination not the journey” as, she quips, authors tell us. This final statement, spoken just feet away from a mute old Toth sitting in a wheelchair is perhaps the greatest argument against brutalist architecture but again this was likely the opposite of Corbet’s intention, yet it’s hard to say given the uninformative last half hour of the film. There are so many unresolved issues regarding Toth including a climatic traumatic event that his wife, adequately played by Felicity Jones, defends him over despite the complete lack of any dialogue between him and the culprit on what occurred. This neglect, like brutalist architecture, ignores human need and comfort, failing to confront the issues at hand. Perhaps this was Cobert’s intention, leave it up to the viewer to decide and assign how things should sit and actualize reality but it’s this type of thinking leaves us vulnerable to detachment and isolated institutions revolving them around spaces that our inaccessible. I don’t dislike the essence minimalist beauty of post brutalist structures like that of Frank Loyd Wrights’ which find harmony with nature or contrasts within the New York rat race like the spiraling Guggenheim art museum on the upper west side of Manhattan, but I would prefer elevating the personal human experience. Why depersonalize art making embracing the aesthetic of shapes as opposed to careful details that long for achievement and the excellence of the human condition. An elegant plush comfortable couch is not in itself inaccessible, but a massive rectangle of concrete is to everyone always. In “The Brutalist”, Toth creates a Zen-like library with a unique beach chair in an empty rotunda. No couches, no tables, no place for people to convene, share, and admire books or even relax in splendorous velvet or lush and plush comfort that most would want for a timeless experience. Instead, you have a cold thought-provoking epitaph which stops time much like, again, the disinformation that coats dangerous political rhetoric. “The Brutalist” fails to even attempt to resolve pain although you can make the case that Brody’s expressions in the end do, which is partly why I would recommend the film for its acting and sheer awe-inspiring artistry albeit pretentious in scope. Let us not just describe the pain or simply march like monuments of defiance that do not even resonate with small minded ignorance. Let us embrace and solve our needs not merely flaunt our wants and aspirations keeping them unattainably abstract. Check out my full entertainment review political rants at: ****/

We need to take the time to care about each other in our spaces and hearts. What are the origins of our pains? The film “A Real Pain” desperately tries to solve them but comes up short. The film currently in theaters and on Hulu written directed and starring Jesse Eisenberg alongside Kieran Culkin who play two cousins on a Jewish heritage tour through Poland is a compellingly earnest look at what defines the human character and how our interactions affect us. The scope and effort here, together with ultra realistic heartfelt performances, especially from Culkin who embodies his annoyingly emotionally needy character with a profound intensity that truly pierces into your psyche becoming an emotional terrorist pinning away at norms and introspection with grand aplomb. The seemingly unfinished script is worth the price of admission and makes this film a must see despite its adequate, albeit, pedestrian direction and weak cinematography, but the main dilemma in the end is left, unresolved. I truly feel for all the characters in the film. The tour group and the two main characters come together and exchange extremely important takes on how to interpret and examine meaningful interaction. It is an Oscar worthy portrayal of our reality as social creatures dependent on each other to understand social constructs and it does lay important groundwork for communal resolutions, but the main supporting actor is left quite literally staring at the randomness of life’s mundane stage albeit at a place of reflection and good intent. Much like gangster rap that’s missing one line to be helpfully cathartic so to does this film leave us on the edge. Of course this was Eisenberg’s intent, like the majority of his work as an actor, he loves to react humbly leaving actions to our superfluous emotions to work out much. There is a great charm in this. His vulnerability is admirable and his honesty likeable and we do see his characters resolve issues but more so for comedic affect and existentialist drama. I think therefore I am but that’s not how I can change. One can see and appreciate the extreme realism here but damn it man, give me one line telling me he will be ok. Tell me one thing I need to know to change and grow or reach a place where I can feel something divine, not just an extra-long hug, symbolizing loss or a view of Poland that looks like Paterson New Jersey looking west.