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Vortex 2021
“To all those whose brains will decompose before their hearts”
Pointedly experiential and confrontational, this meditation on the loss of personhood and identity is mournful and provocative. Stylistically, this is unlike but, at the same time, ironically similar to Noe’s existing oeuvre. It’s an unsettling mash up of confusion, frustration and the endless repetition that is dementia spinning downward to its untenable conclusion. Noe’s formal device here is a “split screen” dichotomy that while occasionally distracting, more often than not,…
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 2022
enough of a sam raimi movie that it’s even more of a bummer when it snaps back into poorly composited franchise management mode. his aesthetic tics are present, sure. but just how exciting is it to see a camera whizzing at top speed into someone’s eyeball when that eyeball belongs to an aged actor reprising his role from an entirely separate franchise, wearing a new and exciting Comics-Accurate™ outfit, complete with a music cue from an unrelated 90s cartoon show?…
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Mad God 2021
Pure fucking hatred for the entire runtime, Mad God is the film version of a run on sentence that you forgot where it began, where it’s going, and hope that someday the agony of it all will make sense. The scale of this animated marvel is monstrous, brimming with unrelenting misery the deeper and deeper humanities darkest points are explored. Is it hatred for yourself, hatred for your boss, hatred for your government, hatred for your world, hatred for your God? Yes. Hope you like it.
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American Antichrist 2018
Dakota Ray is full of himself and it shows in all of his YouTube “interviews” that he obviously put the questions together for himself. You’ve got great bone structure dude but your films are just ok and I can’t figure out why I keep watching them lmao. Always incredible soundtracks though at least. Absolutely love the dude watching heavy-r on his phone, been there bud
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West Side Story 2021
The creative, often thrilling screen direction, deftly supported by inspired camerawork and extravagant orchestrations interprets the material with luminous vitality. It’s difficult to imagine a more cinematic new rendering of this piece. All stops have been pulled. While changes have been made to the original book of the show, nearly all of them seem clever and right, propelling the film forward with appropriate agency for a 2021 audience. This is grand and very inventive commercial filmmaking with a number of excellent performances.
Joins the recent remake/sequel of Candyman as another sly discourse on the fallout of gentrification and urban dystopia. Most entertaining.
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The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928
The Passion of Joan of Arc depicts the tragic real story of heroic devotion in the face of persecution. It was obvious when watching Vampyr that director Carl Theodor Dreyer knew how to utilize film in an emotional, provoking way, capturing mood in composition as well as performance. In short, Dreyer knew how to achieve his goal as a filmmaker. This film is no exception, increasing what I thought possible for the medium, let alone from the silent era. Heartbreaking…
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Rollerball 2002
an american studio feature from 2002 which dreams of an orgy of revolutionary violence directed against the looters of the post-soviet states. featuring a performance by slipknot. probably mctiernan's best movie lol
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Inferno 1980
Must defer to Matthew Cohen on this reconsideration after my youthful dismissal of it several decades ago. He is indeed, correct. This red headed stepchild of the much ballyhooed Suspiria emerges as the less sexy but arguably more complex of the two. With Argento’s unmistakably unique stylistic blend of artful flourish and clumsy histrionics (his films boast instances of both exceptional formal design and berserk, expositional line readings) we’re back where Suspiria left us, in the company of deceitful sorcery.…
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Eaten Alive 1976
A brilliant follow-up nightmare to TCM that doubles down on the surreality and somehow amalgamates the terror of the Sawyer family into one demented fuck who would send Nubbins, Drayton, and Bubba heading for the hills.
(Chop Top might get along with Ol’ Judd, though.)
Really emphasizes Hooper’s self-reflective ability through his work as well, a lot of elements from Texas are repeated here—almost like pieces of an elaborate auteur collage board.
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