Film

The best known of Gorin’s Southern California-set trilogy of films about life in his adopted home, Routine Pleasures focuses on a group of model-train enthusiasts who meet near the studio of the director’s friend, the painter and critic Manny Farber. Kent Jones writes, “The minutely detailed re-creations in the model landscapes, without a cactus, lamppost, or storefront out of place, take us deep into a collective desire that reached a peak during the Reagan era, manifested here through a shared sense that change can be postponed and finally rendered powerless by the careful practice of routines.” Dedicated to the anarchic spirits of Gustave Flaubert and termite artist extraordinaire Chuck Jones.