hunger and thirst

In the spirit of "If you see something, say something," I'm going to share a my thoughts on two movies I recently watched and recommend you watch one of them.* I do not think these two were ever intended to be a double feature, but here we are...

The first movie I watched was House of Dynamite. From Wiki:

A House of Dynamite is a 2025 American political thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Noah Oppenheim. It stars Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King with Greta Lee and Jason Clarke. The film shows the perspectives and responses of different U.S. government and military officials after an unknown adversary launches an intercontinental ballistic missile at Chicago.

It is by Netflix, which worried me, but I was intrigued by the premise and the filmmaking team enough to give it a watch. I do not regret watching it because I think it captures what it is like to be alive in 2026 better than any other film I have seen in a long time.** This is my opinion of course. The funny thing is, it seems to have achieved this impressive feat entirely by accident.

There's a scene at the end, an important scene where everything comes to a head, and I can't stop thinking about it. It's just over 3 minutes long, and it makes almost no sense –*** and is actually really boring. The scene is set on Marine One, which is the helicopter equivalent of Air Force One and has two seated actors in it, Idris Elba as the president of the United States and some actor who I don't think I've seen before as the stoic military member tasked with carrying the nuclear football: a real-life briefcase that must remain in close proximity to the president at all times and allows the president to execute a nuclear attack at a moment's notice. The president has a decision to make, should he launch a nuclear attack before the missiles hit Chicago or not? The military guy explains in such dense technical jargon – "We'll also deploy our Ohio-class subs, each with 24 Trident II D5 MIRV-equipped ballistic missiles." – that I guess we're supposed to be impressed by how well-researched the script is. With the exposition out of the way, he boils it down for us dummies that the president has 3 attack options, "Rare, medium, and well-done." The president asks for the guy's help, but the guy relents, he can't help make the decision, he can only present the options. The stoic military man carrying the ability to rain death down on millions of people he does not know from on high then makes the sign of the cross. The president notices and this exchange follows:

President: God give you any answers?
Guy: Uh, not looking for one? I just... Sorry, sir.
President: Don't apologize. I go to church. I just... I haven't for a while. I always thought having you follow me around with that book of plans for weapons like that... Just being ready is the point, right? Keeps people in check. Keeps the world straight. If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war, right?
Guy: Like you said before, it's insanity.
President: But someone did. So none of this makes sense. Unless it was a mistake.
Guy: But the genie's out. If we do nothing, the bad guys see that they can get away with it.
President: I listened to this podcast...

All of this is THE MOST 2026: the highly trained, always-follow-orders lieutenant making the sign of the cross in this moment; the "I have this identity of myself as a churchgoing, moral human, but I don't actually do the thing I claim to be" type person as the man in charge; the idea that having the biggest muscles will keep you safe and is the only way to create peace; the inability to act by the only people capable of acting; the thought that any aggression justifies and allows for an outsized response, even if it will massacre innocent people who aren't remotely involved, by two people who just claimed to answer to a higher power; and the kicker, that having heard something in a podcast makes you an expert...

When it ended, I looked for the script in Netflix's FYC (For Your Consideration) campaign (fun fact: it's not there) because I wanted to see what was on the page. I didn't think I was remembering it right. I ended up going back to the movie and rewatching the scene. It is exactly as I remembered. I wasn't imagining it. The less said about the rest of the movie by me, the better.

The second movie I watched was...

Again, from Wiki:

The Testament of Ann Lee is a 2025 epic historical musical drama film directed by Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote it with Brady Corbet. The film stars Amanda Seyfried as Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shakers religious sect in the 18th century. The supporting cast includes Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, and Christopher Abbott.

This one has things like this:

Within the first few minutes of this biopic, I was hooked. It opens with a credit sequence that I felt was worth more attention than the entirety of House of Dynamite. Instead of adding pops of "humanity" to the characters on the page, as HoD did, The Testament of Ann Lee (TToAL?) did a deep dive into the depths of the characters in search of souls within. We all know I'm a sucker for music videos and a musical film is like one long music video but I truly enjoyed this film's earnest exploration of a difficult-to-understand character and her followers. It would've been easy to mishandle this material, so bravo to Mona Fastvold and the filmmaking team for giving us a worthwhile piece of filmmaking in the year 2025. I don't want to discuss TToAL too much in case anyone here chooses to watch it. I'd hate to ruin any of the fun. In case you missed it, of the two films I discussed here, I recommend the one about Ann Lee.

Watching these two films back to back was definitely an experience and it had me thinking about cinema and the stories being told in theaters and on streaming services. There wasn't a whole lot to champion in 2025/2026 and even the films up for awards aren't complete gems – in my opinion – but they're better than the rest, which isn't saying much these days. Just like Ann Lee, I too hunger and thirst. But what I crave from cinema is more things verging on the transcendent, more stories where people who know what they want and go after it, more characters with both resolve and goodwill in mind who I can look to for inspiration. I understand that much of what is made is simply made to entertain, but I seek out the projects that aim a little bit higher. I can handle being uncomfortable, at times.

Maybe HoD exists to show those interested what happens in these closed rooms when the proverbial crap hits the fan, but the writer and director chose to highlight the characters' personal lives in an attempt to have an audience form a connection. This got me dwelling on the film Dunkirk (Dir. Christopher Nolan) and how it achieved what it did with us knowing almost nothing about the characters enduring the tragedy and trauma onscreen. It set out to show one "theater of war," but by the end, I knew the characters in Dunkirk, I felt for them and related to them.

Maybe that's the difference in the two films I just watched. In HoD, the characters stared at screens throughout, trying to make sense of information while they decide how to (re)act. In TToAL, the characters knew what they wanted and went to great lengths in order to achieve their goals, and had to overcome obstacles and oppression along the way. Maybe that's the type of characters I hunger and thirst for in film. Maybe that's the type of people I hunger and thirst for in life.

mvm(onthly)

Lastly, I'm going to park an intriguing music video here because it had me hooked from the opening moment and the song's pretty catchy itself. It's not "Hunger and Thirst" by Daniel Blumberg and Amanda Seyfriend, but it's worth a listen and a watch. The shame of this video is that it came out in 2026 and I assume AI was used in its creation but I cannot be sure. If they achieved this without the use of those tools, good for them.

The end. Wait, actually...

What do you think of the new format for indoor animal?

* Am I misunderstanding and misusing this saying?
** So much of the film is folks getting information from screens and not knowing how to act or react. Sound familiar?
*** I got away from using M dashes (–) because AI was using them so frequently and I didn't want people to think my writing was AI, but I'm taking them back!

indoor animal is curated by a human: Tim Papciak. Occasionally, he recommends a book, movie, show, art piece, or link to some dusty corner of the internet that he believes either 1.) adds to the human experience, or 2.) serves as a coping mechanism in the year 2026. Note: this is not, and never will be, self-help content.