no forwarding address. When he
sees a mysterious young woman
(Zosia Mamet) taking a box from
Sarah’s vacated home, Sam
follows her, and so begins his
journey into a bizarre Los Angeles
underworld as he searches for his
missing neighbor.
Within his film’s first few
minutes, Mitchell references and
rips off such disparate movies
as Robert Altman’s The Long
Goodbye (Sam has a female
neighbor who likes to prance
around on her balcony sans
clothing), Hitchcock’s Vertigo and
De Palma’s Body Double. It’s a
movie so packed with pop culture
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 58
references and nods to cinema
history that Mitchell makes
Quentin Tarantino look Amish by
comparison.
What distinguishes Mitchell from
Tarantino is his self-awareness
in this regard, and his movie
has much to say about the very
modern phenomenon of mass
produced pop culture being
sold in a manner that makes
the consumer feel like they’re
participating in a revolution
simply by handing over their
dollars to consume it (look at
how Disney monetizes outrage
in its marketing of films like Black
Panther and Captain Marvel).
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