What kind of American are you?

Civil War — 4/5

Cailee Spaeny being 25 years old is the most unrealistic thing about this. No way is that girl a day over 16. smdh. I, an Alex Garland fan, really enjoyed this. I even enjoyed 'Men'! I think the guy doesn't shy away from difficult set-ups and doesn't allow for easy ways out. I think the movie is about how journalists don't sit at the middle; they sit at both poles simultaneously. They are doing both something, and nothing. They're on the extreme of nothing by being closest to a place to help, but choosing not to, and they're on the extreme of something by putting their lives on the line so that information may travel from one place to another. They dangle themselves perilously close to either edge. "We record so other people ask" is the easy way out, and belies the trauma they go through due to the action and inaction. As the world is ripped in two, they tear themselves apart. "The end of our rope is a noose."

4/22/24, more—journalism, photojournalism, is what we choose to approach, what we choose to show. The president seems bad. But that final image, of them standing over his corpse, smiling? It seems wrong. With what you choose to show, you are always choosing a side. Images need context.