Viewed uncharitably, this is a dry run for The Wild Bunch, charting the violence and psychopathy at the heart of the American West (and the American Western). But where Peckinpah’s masterpiece takes its characters’ griminess for granted, here we see murderous impulses take shape, guided by the Heston’s power-mad major, a cross between Colonels Custer and Kurtz.

Setting out on a mission that seems like adventurist busywork—pushing back an Apache assault on New Mexico, on the post-Gettysburg backside of the…

Actual dialogue from this movie:

“Hey Fern, still working at Amazon?”
“Sure am! The money is great!”
“Wow! And what about the culture?”
“The corporate culture is full of positive values, from the CEO Jeff Bezos on down to workers like me on the line at the fulfilment centre!”
“Are you involved with the unionization effort at all?”
“Why pay almost $500 in dues? Amazon has me covered: with high wages, health care, vision, and dental benefits, as well as…

The appeal of Adam Curtis, to me, has a lot to do with his style: that mishmash of sound and image that lands somewhere between late Godard and Zeitgeist: The Movie. I understand the criticisms of his work--i.e. that it couches essentially shallow insights in an arch ponderousness--but I also think that his core insights, while perhaps a little low-cal, are nonetheless correct. We do live in dreamworlds conjured by the media. Our cages are merely gilded. The New Age…