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Christmas U.S.A 1949
This is really beautiful and I'm glad I found it. I love abstract films, ones where you can't possibly get the message on first view, even if the vibes are clear and resonant. Markopoulos's gaze is always steady and human.
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The Report 2019
It says a lot that this movie is slightly less boring than my grad school program. Great performance from Driver as always but the content felt too dense. Like, he knows all the facts, we get it? Also there were a number of poor editing decisions where it felt like the film could have been more meaningful if the shot was sustained longer. Instead the pace was rushed just a tad each scene in the opening act, creating a cumulative…
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Stars by the Pound 2019
Milwaukee Film Festival 2019
Four girls are hospitalized together: one obese, one depressed, one wheelchair bound, and one with severe OCD. Stars by the Pound follows their journey to enter a science competition in hopes of winning a zero-gravity plane ride, and realize their dreams.
At first I thought this was going to be a weight-loss movie but thankfully it rose above that and became, when the other girls entered the picture, about (dis)ability and ableism more generally.
Not great…
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Edge of the Knife 2018
Milwaukee Film Festival 2019
Haida Nation lives in the Gwaii archipelago, off the coast of British Columbia, as they have for thousands of years. But cultural imperialism and forced integration have slowly destroyed their customs and especially their language. Only 50 speak it today. Edge of the Knife is a narrative feature about a father and son estranged by a horrible incident and then isolated from one another. It is written entirely in the Haida language, the first film ever…
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Ad Astra 2019
Great example of a film with really significant subject matter that can't find a way to communicate just how significant it really is. Some of the biggest themes of life and death and meaning and despair are explored loosely and dramatically, but it always felt like the director was trying not to be too thematic, and not too plot-driven. The result is that neither works well, the narrative stealing attention and value from the philosophical musings, but then the philosophical…
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Minority Report 2002
Didn't care enough to write a full review but this was good and clever and had really unpleasant cinematography but i read online that that was intentional, and also the score was garbage, but the acting was good and Tim Blake Nelson's character was my fav and also the plot reveals were a wild ride okay thats all
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Live/Play 2015 - League of Legends 2015
I loved the Icelandic guy. Cool docu with some wide-ranging subject matter only loosely strung together, but strung together well and with nice camera work too.
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To the Wonder 2012
The day after watching this movie I saw the professor at school who loaned it to me. He said, "did you feel the all-encompassing, Christological embrace of God at the core of the film?" and I said no I did not get that on first watch and he joked, "Said no one, ever, of any Terrence Malick film."