Paradise on Telegraph Avenue

Plus films of 2025:Q2

For Jorge Luis Borges, paradise was a library. At nearly 70 years of age, I’ve found my paradise at Lighthaven, which recently hosted meet-ups for Less Online and Manifest over back-to-back weekends in Berkeley, California. I know of nowhere else on Earth where I can find so many interesting conversations in such a compact area.

The participants of these two meet-ups (as well as the mid-week camp) are often described by outsiders as “rationalists”. Some of those I met prefer to describe themselves as “rationalist-adjacent”—buying into many of the basic principles of rationalism, but too cool to self-identify that way. I suppose that term also describes me (the part about rationalist-adjacent, not being cool.) Most participants were less than half of my age.

Many of the people I met closely follow blogs such as Less Wrong, Astra Codex Ten, and Marginal Revolution. As a result, I’m better known among members of the rationalist community than I am among my fellow economists. That suggests that my blogging career has been more impactful than my academic career, which makes me a bit sad, as I put far more effort into the academic work. Nonetheless, I’m happy to have the chance to chat with so many readers of my blog.

Artificial intelligence was by far the most popular topic of conversation, with a special focus on AI risk. At the Manifest weekend, prediction markets were a hot topic. But many of my favorite conversations were over a wide variety of other topics including books, films, science, gambling, and politics. I met many well know figures that I’ve been reading for years. Where else will you meet multiple people within 24 hours who casually mentioned the short story Funes the Memorious in conversation?

Most of the people that knew about my blogging asked me about my film reviews, not my posts on economics. I guess there’s no longer much interest in Fed policy—the world has moved on to issues like AI and tariffs. Nonetheless, I was surprised to find so much interest in my film reviews, as I don’t think I have any special talent for that sort of thing. I now feel like I should try harder in writing them, but maybe that would spoil the spontaneity.

On other topics, I finished the final two volumes of Ferrante’s extremely impressive Neapolitan Quartet. Then I started reading (and rereading) Italo Calvino. It was interesting to read an author from the 1960s who was so interested in artificial intelligence. I also read the first two volumes of a Danish novel entitled On the Calculation of Volume. (The other 5 volumes have yet to be translated.) At a superficial level it is one of those time loop stories, a bit like Groundhog Day. But it reminded me more of a novel length version of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Wakefield, one of my favorite short stories. And finally, The Magic of Silence is a really good book about the German painter Casper David Friedrich.

These days there are very few films that I look forward to seeing, as most of my favorite directors are either over-the-hill or dead. One exception is Bi Gan’s new film Resurrection, which will be released sometime within the next year. Let me know if you see an announcement.

2025:Q2 films

Newer films

Confessions of a Good Samaritan (US) 3.8 What does it mean to be an extremely good person? Is altruism a sort of mental illness? After seeing this outstanding documentary, you’ll never think of these questions in the same way. I was struck by the fact that anonymous kidney donors are treated with suspicion, as if there’s something wrong with being an unusually good person. Montaigne once said:

All actions which exceed the usual limits are open to sinister interpretations, since higher things are no more to our taste than inferior ones.

We are bigoted against people that are different, whether unusually good or unusually evil.

The Phoenician Scheme (US) 3.7 Not everyone looks for the same thing in a film. Those seeking an engrossing story are likely to be disappointed with Wes Anderson’s newest work. Those seeking dazzling visual artistry will be delighted. I’m in the latter group.

Only the River Flows (China) 3.4 A post-modern puzzle in the style of Memories of Murder, but nowhere near as good. Don’t watch it if you are averse to ambiguity.

Red Card (US) 3.3 A brisk 45-minute film that is loosely based on a true story of a Chinese immigrant who falls for a woman working in a hostess bar in LA’s San Gabriel valley.

Wolf Children (Japan) 3.0 Back in the 20^th century, claims that a film was “in the style of Hitchcock”, it was an almost certain giveaway that it was nothing of the kind. Today it’s Hayao Miyazaki for which all the misleading comparisons seem to be made, including for this film. Critics focus on superficial aspects of the style of these great directors, and miss their essence.

A New York Story (US) 3.0 This glossy look at NYC’s upper class starts out promisingly, clearly influenced by Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan. After the opening scene, it’s a fairly standard romantic drama with an appealing male lead and a fairly predictable plot.

John and Yoko (US) 2.9 There were moments when I enjoyed revisiting the early 1970s, and moments when I did not enjoy revisiting that crazy period. The best parts were the scenes with Yoko Ono, who is less overexposed than John Lennon. Shown in an Imax theatre, for no apparent reason.

Older films

Rio Bravo (US, 1959, Criterion Channel (CC)) 3.9 This Howard Hawks classic ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime, but never ceases being highly entertaining. Modern viewers might find some portions to be silly, but you cannot stop watching. It was also the end of an era. After this, directors needed to find new approaches—Hollywood epics were replaced by art films. BTW, here are ten other great films released in 1959: North By Northwest, Some Like It Hot, Imitation of Life, The 400 Blows, Pickpocket, Hiroshima Mon Amour, The World of Apu, Floating Weeds, The Human Condition (I and II), and Good Morning. That’s insane.

The Lady From Shanghai (US, 1947, CC) 3.9 Despite its leisurely pace, the first half of this film is near-perfect cinema. The second half is more fast paced and contains three famous set-pieces—including the hall of mirrors shootout—but it is actually the weaker half of the film. I enjoyed this more the second time around, as I no longer get frustrated when a film has an intricate and difficult to follow plot.

The Human Condition I, II and III (Japan, 1959-61, CC) 3.8 This 9½ hour film is divided up into three films. Since each of these three films contains two parts, there are six parts in all. Very confusing. About halfway through The Human Condition II (i.e. near the end of part 3) I realized that I was basically watching the original Full Metal Jacket. There are too many similarities for it to be coincidence—Kubrick essentially remade that specific portion of this much longer film epic. On the other hand, it is clear that The Human Condition II was heavily influenced by Paths of Glory (a 1957 Kubrick film.) So it’s sort of like when Bob Dylan copied a John Lennon song that was itself loosely based on earlier Dylan songs.

Noted film critic David Shipman called this “unequivocally the greatest film ever made." Certainly not the best in an artistic sense, but probably the most uncompromisingly bleak portrayal of human life ever put on celluloid. I gave it 3.8, but as with films like Shoah, I feel like it’s in poor taste to give this any sort of numerical rating.

In an accompanying documentary, Masahiro Shinoda suggests that the best war films are those that portray war from the perspective of the losing country. I think he’s right. The truth is that both sides lose in most wars; it’s just that one side loses more badly.

The Sacrifice (Sweden, 1986, CC) 3.8 Tarkovsky’s final film. Seeing this again nearly 40 years later, I’m reminded of the pervasive fear of nuclear annihilation that was present in the mid-1980s. The fear has diminished, even as the risk has not. If this is Tarkovsky’s worst film, it might be the best worst film ever.

The Story of Film: New Generation (UK, 2022, Amazon) 3.8 This requires a bit of explanation. A decade earlier, a 15-part series on the history of film was released entitled The Story of Film: An Odyssey. This is a nearly 3-hour update that brings the story forward to 2020. At the recent Less Online/Manifest conferences, lots of people asked me where they could get information on film appreciation. The 15-part series film is a great place to start. The portion of episode 4 after the 48-minute mark has a nice discussion of Hitchcock’s style.

Dancer in the Dark (Denmark, 2000, CC) 3.7 Who would have thought that the most biting critique of America ever put on film would be a musical? A musical for people that don’t like musicals. Since I generally don’t like musicals, I liked this one a great deal (much more than when I saw it back in 2000.) It helps that Bjork is one of my favorite singers. I’m not sure why, but between 1996 and 2006, Lars von Trier, David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino directed a long string of films where female protagonists were put through extreme trauma.

Green Fish (Korea, 1997, CC) 3.7 Lee Chang-dong directed one of the better film debuts that I have seen. Criterion Channel had a nice 4k restored print of a little known film that is well worth watching.

The Trial (US/Europe, 1962, CC) 3.7 Suppose you were a film buff who had never heard of Kafka, and you also knew nothing about Orson Welles. Also imagine that you were told that this film was produced by an obscure Eastern European filmmaker. How would you rate it? Clearly it would be viewed as an overlooked masterpiece. But you have heard of Kafka and Welles, and that undoubtedly explains why it received mixed reviews. For this sort of project, reviewers are naturally going to have extremely high standards. If someone felt that the film fell well short of expectations, I would not argue with them. The print has been beautifully restored.

After viewing the film, I watched some old interviews of Welles that were part of the Criterion package, and in some ways enjoyed them even more than the film itself. If only Tyler could have interviewed Welles. He’s such an engaging personality that he is able to create a compelling character in his films without seeming to act at all. Sort of like how Diego Maradona was able to move so smoothly and efficiently that his style seemed almost effortless. Or how the very best central bankers don’t seem to be doing much at all.

Read My Lips (France, 2001, CC) 3.7 The perfect film for those looking for something beyond the standard crime drama. The gimmick that underlies the story may be implausible, but the film is good enough that it doesn’t matter.

The Great Buster: A Celebration (US, 2018, CC) 3.7 If you like Buster Keaton, you’ll like him even more after seeing this documentary. The only downside is that seeing scenes from old silent films out of context doesn’t really to justice to the films themselves. I view Keaton and Chaplin as the two greatest directors of silent films. Keaton must be one of the least selfish great artists in history.

The Only Son (Japan, 1936, CC) 3.6 Ozu’s first talkie anticipates some of the ideas that will later be done far better in Tokyo Story. But even second level Ozu is truer and deeper than almost any other filmmaker.

The Consequences of Love (Italy, 2004, CC) 3.6 The film equivalent of one of those elliptical short stories you find in literary magazines. Cool, stylish, mysterious.

Go West (US, 1925, CC) 3.6 This was not one of the great Keaton films, but it’s still pretty enjoyable, especially the big set piece at the end. If you have never seen a Keaton film, you’ll want to start with one of the classics, such as The General (which some critics consider the greatest silent film ever made.)

The Naked City (US, 1948, CC) 3.5 Of all the film noirs that I’ve seen, this is the best from a “documentary” perspective. Lots of wonderful shots of life in New York during the immediate post-war period—it really was another world. Also contains lots of humor, which is necessary because the plot and screenplay fall well short of the classic noirs. When I was very young, I recall a popular TV series with the same name, based on this film. “There are 8 million stories in the naked city. This is one of them.” This was a beautifully restored print

Songs From the Second Floor (Sweden, 2000, CC) 3.4 Combines the deadpan humor of Kaurismaki, the surrealism of Lynch, and the cynicism of Kubrick. Some of the satire is a bit too much on the nose for my taste, but the visuals are consistently good.

A Report on the Party and the Guests (Czech, 1966, CC) 3.4 Fans of the European New Wave and/or political films will definitely want to check this one out. Some of the political satire is easy to follow, but some of it requires more knowledge of Czech communism than I possess. It’s one of those films that get under your skin in ways you don’t realize until it’s over. I had very vivid dreams the night after watching this.

Streetwise (China, 2021, CC) 3.4 I like this sort of gritty Chinese noir, but this particular one seemed a bit derivative, similar to films like Suzhou River. The visual style was quite impressive, however, and I look forward to the next film from this promising young director.

The Crime of Monsieur Lange (France, 1936, CC) 3.4 A warm-up for Rules of the Game. Quite charming, but slight.

At 3:25 (France, 1924, CC) 3.4 Rene’s first film is a charming sci-fi comedy. The original film was entitled The Crazy Ray and was an hour long. This is a recut version that’s only 35 minutes long.

Mifune (Denmark, 1999, CC) 3.3 This unusual romcom is one of the more enjoyable Dogme 95 films. The two leads are particularly appealing, and it’s nice to see a non-Hollywood portrayal of mental illness. (I.e., a non-sentimental portrayal.)

Wild Things (US, 1998, CC) 3.3 It isn’t believable enough to work as a thriller, and it isn’t quite funny enough to work as a black comedy, but it comes close enough in both respects to make for a fairly entertaining evening. Bill Murray is especially funny and Theresa Russell does a good job portraying a slatternly middle-aged woman.

Ms. Tu Hau (Vietnam, 1963, CC) 3.3 I saw two old Vietnamese war films, and neither involved the US. In this one, the Vietnamese fight French soldiers portrayed as gleeful sadists. (Asian films often use really bad western actors.) Excellent visuals and a fine lead performance by the reluctant heroine. Had this been widely shown in the US in 1963, perhaps we might have avoided the subsequent quagmire—what the Vietnamese call the American War.

When Will October Come? (Vietnam, 1983, CC) 3.2 In this film, the Vietnamese are at war with Cambodia. The story is more interesting than Ms. Tu Hau, but the visuals are much more bland.

The Ghost Writer (UK, 2010) 3.0 Like most political films, it works best if you have little or no understanding of how the real world works. For the rest of us, the plot is too preposterous to believe. The ending makes no sense. (I’m guessing that this is not Tony Blair’s favorite film.) Polanski directed, but you’d hardly know it.

Blue Steel (US, 1990, CC) 2.5 Police thriller with an uninteresting villain and an increasingly absurd plot. Made in a year when NYC had 2245 murders, a higher per capita rate than Colombia. Last year they had only 377, and this year’s toll will likely be much lower.