4/3/2023 0 Comments Cloud money movie![]() ![]() “I’ve come to understand that the medium is a primal force in the American home,” Siskind tells Jack. Or what about the ever-present televisions? They’re everywhere in White Noise, set in an era when the internet hadn’t yet blanketed the world. Following a musing on how much he loves Babette, Jack suddenly interjects, “The Airport Marriott, the Downtown Travelodge, the Sheraton Inn and Conference Center.” Airborne toxic event: Terrifying! Netflix In the novel, we get periodic bursts in the text that become weirdly specific little lists. Or what about all of these lists and litanies of brands that pop up repeatedly? In the film, this translates into many scenes in a brightly colored supermarket with prominently displayed, period-appropriate products, laundry detergents and milk and particular types of gum. For instance: Hitler Studies? What a strange and largely unremarked-upon choice - but the movie and the novel treat this as if it’s a totally normal sort of academic department to found. It’s actually kind of amazing what DeLillo managed to pack into the novel. People can, and do, write lengthy peer- reviewed papers and dissertations on White Noise, because it is not really just a story, though it’s plenty entertaining on the surface. But everything gets weirdly upended when a toxic cloud suddenly forms on the horizon, which the news calls the “airborne toxic event.” His courses in Hitler Studies - like a seminar, for instance, that examines his speeches - are wildly popular, and his colleague Murray Siskind (Don Cheadle) wants Jack’s help in creating a parallel Elvis Studies department. He lives with his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig) in a rambling old house full of their children, mostly from previous marriages. It’s 1984 and Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) is a middle-aged college professor and head of the Hitler Studies department, which he created. Noah Baumbach’s new film adaptation of the novel is a valiant attempt to capture DeLillo’s book, but the result is a movie so faithful to the original work that it comes very close to not working. It’s a funny novel that keeps shapeshifting, making the reader feel the friction between lives dominated by consumerism and consumption and technology on the one hand, and the weight of mortality on the other. The 1985 novel is a classic of postmodern fiction, long considered “unadaptable” for reasons that become more clear when you read it. I hate depending on a machine for my basic survival, but without it I’ll stare at the ceiling for hours, contemplating my existence, and I guess that’s sort of Don DeLillo’s point in White Noise. That staticky low hum is imperative I can’t sleep without it. I’ve downloaded two different apps on my phone to simulate the sound when I travel. Now technically unnecessary, the white noise machine still goes on every night. ![]() I got it to block the sounds of traffic from the busy avenue outside my window, but years ago we moved our bedroom to the back of the apartment. It’s a wondrous performance by Moretz, who establishes Maude as a resourceful badass who has endured sexism and abuse for much of her life and refuses to let her tormentors define her.There’s a white noise machine in my bedroom. Maude has been tasked with transporting a Top Secret package that must not be opened under any circumstances because it’s the MacGuffin of this movie - but there’s not enough room in the Sperry turret for both Maude and package, so Taylor John Smith’s Quaid tells Maude he’ll safeguard the valuable cargo while she’s wedged into the tiny enclosure.įor about half the film, “Shadow in the Cloud” director Roseanne Liang keeps the camera focused solely on Maude in that cramped turret as Maude hears the boorish male crew members making lewd jokes about her (they forgot she has a headset, but it doesn’t really matter to them when they’re busted) and laughing off her reports of some mysterious creature - maybe even an actual gremlin - hovering about the plane. The year is 1943, and Moretz’s Flight Officer Maude Garrett is an unwelcome guest of the all-male crew on a B-17 Flying Fortress named “The Fool’s Errand” (and oh is that name a harbinger of things to come) taking off from New Zealand. Available Friday at and on demand.Īlthough the entertainingly bonkers feature “Shadow in the Cloud” is an original story, it’s basically “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” in a World War II setting, with Chloe Grace Moretz playing the part of the ostensibly hysterical passenger who swears there’s a gremlin (maybe more than one) lurking in the skies, hell-bent on attacking the aircraft and killing everyone onboard. Rated R (for language throughout, sexual references and violence). Vertical Entertainment and Redbox Entertainment present a film directed by Roseanne Liang and written by Liang and Max Landis. ![]()
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