{"id":53765,"date":"2025-08-08T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T20:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53765\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T20:38:10","slug":"how-movies-about-the-internet-explain-our-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53765\/","title":{"rendered":"How Movies About the Internet Explain Our Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Masaki Suda in Cloud. (Courtesy Sideshow \/ Janus Films)<\/p>\n

I WAS EAGER TO SEE CLOUD, the new film from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, in large part because his 2001 film, Pulse, is one of the first I remember that really understood and articulated the (potentially) isolating, atomizing nature of the internet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not to say that I appreciated what Kurosawa was going for at the time. Pulse was a horror film that presented the internet as an avenue to the afterlife, with spirits attempting to imbue the living with suicidal ennui. Despite sharing the same milieu as the college-aged kids in that film\u2014early access to high-speed internet, dorms that were wired for connectivity, and class activities that had begun to migrate out of the classroom and into cyberspace\u2014the sense of alienation was totally foreign to me. The internet was a gift, a boon, a research tool that couldn\u2019t be beat and a way to submit work without having to trudge to a printer. Cyberspace complemented, but did not replace, meatspace.<\/p>\n

As the years have gone on, I have come to believe Kurosawa\u2019s vision of the technological future is closer to correct than my own. Closer, but not quite right. Because the internet encouraged both isolation and alienation from general society alongside the cultivation of weird, random connections that would allow those with petty resentments to stew in their grievance and imagine ways to make the world worse for everyone else. It is these connections that drive Cloud, a movie about the omnipresent fear that, in a hyperconnected society, it feels like everyone\u2019s running some sort of grift, everyone\u2019s looking for an angle, and that someone, somewhere, has found a slightly better angle for their grift than you have.<\/p>\n

Ry\u00f4suke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) is the least-reputable of individuals in the modern internet ecosystem: the flipper. The middleman, the retailer, the guy who snaps up a product and then sells it via auction sites on the dark web trafficking in stolen (or phony) merch. He\u2019s the reason every fan-focused site has a limit of one unit per household; he\u2019s the reason the limited-edition movie or print or Funko you want is listed on eBay for three times MSRP shortly after it goes on sale. As the film begins, he\u2019s scamming a family out of their life\u2019s work in order to make an enormous profit. By film\u2019s end, his various enemies have joined forces to try and take him down; it is only with the aid of a young man who might be the literal devil that he could survive.<\/p>\n

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There are nuances of Kurosawa\u2019s film that are difficult to understand without fully comprehending Japanese society\u2014elements of the relationships between older students and younger students, for example, likely went over my head\u2014but the basic logic of life on the internet transcends national borders: scam or be scammed. And when everything online is a scam, satisfaction can only be achieved in the real world, the world of blood and bone.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll simply recommend you see Cloud, which is in theaters now, because it\u2019s of a piece with a series of recent films about the odd little communities the internet has caused to form. Most recently, and still in theaters, is Ari Aster\u2019s Eddington<\/a>, a social satire about how life during the pandemic went totally insane because we spent most of our time staring at little boxes that live in our pockets and are algorithmically programmed to drive us insane. Then there\u2019s Red Rooms<\/a>, another movie about the ways in which the internet generates a sort of primal amorality, one that might only be combatable via a similar sense of amoral depravity. Cloud veers towards Eddington\u2019s sense of the absurd more than Red Rooms\u2019s grounded examination of the web\u2019s ultimate depravities, but all three share a potent dread of the world we\u2019ve built around us.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Sphere on March 12, 2025. (Photo by Kevin Carter\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

I\u2019M A BIG FAN OF THE SPHERE, the giant snow-globe-shaped monstrosity in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip. I love the gaudiness of it and I admire the technological feat of creating a building-sized 16K LED screen. It\u2019s a $2.3 billion monument to human excess, a fact only heightened by the hilarious incongruence of the one movie truly shot for the screen is a blisteringly anti-human nature documentary by Darren Aronofsky about how we\u2019re a plague that should flee Earth so it can heal from all we\u2019ve done to it. I was literally there last weekend, watching Aronofsky\u2019s Postcard from Earth for a second time. That\u2019s how much I love the Sphere.<\/p>\n

I put this out there because I need to explain that I\u2019m both disgusted by the idea of deforming The Wizard of Oz to show on the giant interior screen of the Sphere and also fascinated by it. I repulsed and attracted simultaneously, the two magnetic poles of my soul at war with each other. Do I admire artistic intent more or obscene spectacle? I don\u2019t know. Inside me, they wrestle.<\/p>\n

All of which is to say that I had a fun time discussing the idea of The Wizard of Oz coming to the Sphere with Peter and Alyssa on Across the Movie Aisle even as I find the whole spectacle completely repellent. It is, truly, an immaculate representation of Las Vegas itself.<\/p>\n

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Across the Movie Aisle<\/p>\n

<\/a>Why ‘Oz’ Is Coming to The Sphere in Vegas<\/a>\"Why<\/a><\/p>\n

On this week\u2019s episode, Sonny Bunch, Alyssa Rosenberg, and Peter Suderman ask why The Wizard of Oz is being mutilated via the alchemy of AI to be shown on the enormous 16K-resolution screen at The Sphere \u2026 and why Sonny is, honestly, kind of into it. (You can watch the CBS Sunday Morning segment on<\/p>\n

Follow Across The Movie Aisle to your player of choice:<\/p>\n

Apple Podcasts<\/a> | Spotify<\/a> | Amazon Music <\/a>| More<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Georgina Campbell in Barbarian. (Courtesy 20th Century Studios via MovieStillsDB)<\/p>\n

ON NEXT WEEK\u2019S ACROSS THE MOVIE AISLE, we\u2019ll be discussing Weapons, Zach Cregger\u2019s follow-up to the surprise indie horror hit Barbarian. I\u2019ve seen it and have thoughts (sorry for the lack of review; I\u2019m technically on vacation this week) but we\u2019ll save those for Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Until then, let us revisit Barbarian, shall we? Cregger\u2019s breakthrough film is kind of a marvel: an original idea, one that expertly combines horror and comedy without suffering from tonal whiplash, and one that kept audiences guessing throughout without ever devolving into farce. Except when it intentionally hit farcical comic notes. One thing I didn\u2019t appreciate as much at the time as I do now is how good of an actor\u2019s director Cregger is: Justin Long and Richard Brake absolutely kill it in this movie, but so does everyone else. There isn\u2019t a false note in the picture. He manages a similar feat in Weapons but ups the ante by massively increasing the size of the cast and throwing kids into the mix.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Barbarian is pretty great and it\u2019s a perfect mood-setter for Weapons. Which is also, I think, pretty good.<\/p>\n

Brighten a friend\u2019s inbox: Send them this newsletter and give the gift of Sonny.<\/p>\n

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