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Knives Out 2019
I really loathe the whodunit genre, maybe above all others, but Rian Johnson does a fine job keeping the suspense and layering the reveals. Ultimately I didn't really care for it, even if I can't help but appreciate the cast, script, and score.
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Ford v Ferrari 2019
There is a list titled films where the moral is not listening to corporations and executives despite being products of studios where every decision was made by executives and that about wraps up my thoughts for this review!
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Jojo Rabbit 2019
The exact inverse of Life is Beautiful (1997).
At first I thought it was emotional whiplash, alternating between extreme comedy and extreme drama. But the imbalance is so strong that Jojo Rabbit only lands as comedy, not drama. By the time read sad moments come about, the audience is so habituated to Waititi's shtick that they cannot be felt. Honestly this makes for a good children's movie to expose the horror of Nazism to a new audience, but I didn't get anything out of its commentary it intended to put forward.
Still full of great acting and paced and edited supremely well.
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Straight Up 2019
Milwaukee Film Festival 2019
Does James Sweeney realize he has just become the post-child for the Celibate Gay Christian movement. Does he even realize. My gay and married to a woman friends went crazy this morning when I told them about this movie. Everyone wants to see it. We feel so seen and even if its a joke we are super into it. I have no plans of marrying a woman unless we are emotionally compatible and she is ace,…
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17 Blocks 2019
Milwaukee Film Festival 2019
20 years of handheld footage follow a black family in the poorest sector of Washington, D.C., through tragedy and redemption. The film doesn't land emotionally, all the way, but it gets close. At times death and drug addiction are treated too lightly, or when darkly, too heavy-handedly. But the subjects themselves and their extensive coverage make 17 Blocks worthwhile. The film doesn't take any kind of a structural analysis to the family's experience — their life…
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Joker 2019
I don't know why I'm giving it this score. I don't know what I think about Joker. I don't know what was good and what was bad. I don't know how to critique it or whether I should have had a stronger reaction to it than I did. Joaquin Phoenix was great but not excellent, I was underwhelmed by the acting in what was lauded as the best acting of the year. To me Joker has always been a character…
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In a Dream 2008
Watching all of Zagar's filmography, I have been surprised that from the beginning he had such a visually artistic style. Short animations between scenes or during voice-overs. Smooth and flashy transitions. Lots and lots of in-scene and also in-lens color. Abstractions that become real or reality that suddenly abstracts. Moments sped up and moments slowed down, more valuable as a visual than as content. Now, I think his dad's artistry made an impression on his form and style. He grew…