The film-making here leverages a very simple idea that I'm amazed isn't used more: a reliance on narration, both over and in the film. Usually, the idea is to avoid excessive explaining and simply show what you need to. But Richie goes to the other extreme, distracting us from the fact that it isn't cinematic by using overtly flashy edits.
This reliance on explaining allows him to exploit multiple simultaneous cons. Everyone here has some duplicity underway and most have some independent story as well. Its as if Richie starts with a specific number of characters, makes a pass through on having each subvert the reality of the others, selects which main and alternate realities to follow in voice, and then adds some humanizing or interesting strokes.
I don't think I could take more than one of these every three years. I'd rather live in cinema than syncopated radio. But it is rather clever here, especially the business about performing: we have the rock performer (who is too stoned to perform), the painting (which we never see) and the performing accountant (whose sex is icy) as the tokens of the visual cinema.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
This reliance on explaining allows him to exploit multiple simultaneous cons. Everyone here has some duplicity underway and most have some independent story as well. Its as if Richie starts with a specific number of characters, makes a pass through on having each subvert the reality of the others, selects which main and alternate realities to follow in voice, and then adds some humanizing or interesting strokes.
I don't think I could take more than one of these every three years. I'd rather live in cinema than syncopated radio. But it is rather clever here, especially the business about performing: we have the rock performer (who is too stoned to perform), the painting (which we never see) and the performing accountant (whose sex is icy) as the tokens of the visual cinema.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.