Movie/film suggestions.

@immatthewj I am curious to anyone's opinion who liked The Brutalist. If I may say, especially yours because you are a very intelligent and strange (in a good way) individual. 

As I said, the second half was painful. Which implies the first half was OK,  for me, even enjoyable at times. The rape was symbolism I guess, I didn't like it but understood it. I am big architecture nerd which kept me going but it wasn't very entertaining on that front either. I wish the proceeds would have gone to save some buildings designed by Bauhaus people like Breuer and his contemporaries. They are actively deteriorating and being sold to build shopping malls in their place, so that bother me more than the movie. 

 I guess it struck me the way I imagine some old Russian novel would

That is spot on because the movie was very Eastern European in many ways. One: the dialogs and language were authentic - despite the pronunciation. 90% of the movie was shot in Hungary if not all. The style, cinematography was also very typical of Menzel, Forman, Jancso, Gothar, and I'd add Kusturica, my favorite but he is a bit less gloomy. Brody's character is spot on, the genius who is always unhappy and revels in his misery - Eastern European to the core.

Thank you for your kind words, @gano ; "very intelligent" is no doubt a stretch, but I am sure "strange" may be appropriate.  Back to The Brutalist quickly:

generally if a movie starts to bore me and does not develop into something that is going somewhere relatively quickly, I don't hang with it very long before I am switching channels.  Therefore I have been thinking and wondering why I sat through two hundred and some minutes of this film in one sitting.  All I can say is that I guess the acting was good enough and to me the plot was believable (considering the historical period that it was based on) and there was something about the dark and depraved nature of the whole ordeal that the protagonist was enduring (and this is what makes me think of a Russian novel) that held my interest.  (And my experience with Russian novels is limited, but the only one that I did read had sort of the same effect on me, but did not leave me with the burning desire to read more of them.)

A successful story usually has to have a protagonist and an antagonist that create conflict (I'd say that they had that base covered) and the protagonist should be one that the viewer or reader truly cares about (or "gives a damn about what happens to him or her" as one critic once told me), and I confess didn't feel an exceptional amount of that. But although I did not feel a tight connection to anyone in the film, it kept me engaged and interested enough  to not turn it off. For me it was quite watchable, maybe even good, but nowhere near approaching great.  For me, anyway.

BTW, have you been following the Karen Read?  Jury is out and from the questions they have sent the judge, the annalists all feel ng on murder 2 is a done deal and the jury wants to go ng on manslaughter but they have some differences on DUI.  And, apparently the way the verdict sheet reads, if they hang on DUI then they also default to hanging on manslaughter?  Seems pretty messed up if that's the way it is, but I do not have a legal mind.  I know a couple of things:  I have no desire to live in Ma. (which is not on the table anyway), and if I did, I'd stay a long way from Canton.

@immatthewj there is a saying: "women hate women". The judge is doing everything she can to put her away. Either that or she is an incompetent judge. Maybe both. It's not looking great for Read, but at least the jury doesn't seem to think she killed him

I’ve been watching quite a bit of the retrial as it has been live-streamed, @gano , and Judge Cannone does seem to be prosecution friendly.  At least going by the number of objections for each side that she sustains and over rules.  But with that typed, I do not have a legal mind and I do not understand what forms the legal basis for these rulings that she makes.  The pod-casters seemed to be overwhelmingly biased for Read and against Cannone’s rulings, but I think their biases may make them an unreliable source.

As far as whether it looks good or bad for Ms. Read, yesterday near the close of deliberations the analysts were mostly saying it was looking way good for her, and they were basing that upon the questions that the jury had sent to the judge.  As deliberations continue today, the analysts seem to be hedging their bets by a little bit.

Personally, until yesterday, the best I thought she was going to get was a ng on 2cond degree murder and another hung jury on manslaughter (and I wasn’t giving DUI any thought until yesterday), but the way it sounds is as if Ma. defines 2cond degree murder  (and I am going to paraphrase based on my possibly flawed understanding) as any intentional act that is reckless enough that a reasonable person should understand could result in death.  Meaning, to me, that if one was hauling ass down a two-lane highway at 120 mph and a fatal accident resulted, this would meet that criteria for 2cond degree murder.  If I am understanding the definition in Ma. correctly.

Regardless of that, I still think 2cond degree murder was a deliberate over charge by the commonwealth with the strategy being to make it more palatable for the jury to find her guilty of manslaughter.  But I could be mistaken about that as well.  

@immatthewj If it's a hung jury and another trial will happen, that's not good for her. There seem to be some jurors who can't acquit her so there may be a conviction and the judge can come up with a harsh sentence. That's what I mean by not looking good for her. 

It's also not looking good for the truth. She is on trial when the sleazy Canton cops should be. 

MA is a racist, good old boy's privileges open all doors state. Despite the liberal image. As they say it's all different outside 128.