by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
The Electric State | 2025
I've seen a lot of bad movies. Call it an occupational hazard, but I couldn't even guess how much bloated, bland, pretentious, and downright incompetent slop I've seen on screen. Yet, I can't remember the last time I saw a film so soulless and dispiriting as The Electric State - the latest "this can't possibly be real" Netflix mockbuster from Joe and Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame).
In her 2008 essay "Chungking Express: Electric Youth" (included as an extra in the booklet of the Criterion Blu-Ray), critic Amy Taubin compares Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express to Jean-Luc Godard's seminal 1966 film, Masculin Feminin. It's a perceptive parallel, acknowledging both films as quintessential products of their time in depicting youthful romance and disaffection.