Drew Edelstein

Drew Edelstein Patron

Favorite films

  • It's Such a Beautiful Day
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
  • Throw Down
  • Shrek 2

Recent activity

All
  • Reality

    ★★★½

  • Godzilla Minus One

    ★★

  • A Summer's Tale

    ★★★★½

  • May December

    ★★★★★

Pinned reviews

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  • Ratatouille

    Ratatouille

    ★★★★★

    Ratatouille was the first movie I ever loved - and it is likely the blueprint for the person I am today.

    It was my obsession as a 7 year old, that age where my sense of self finally began to crystalize into something reflecting the me I am today. I was enchanted seeing it in theaters, and devoured whatever ancillary Ratatouille media I could find. Disney Insider magazines, Playstation 2 games, novelizations, and comics galore; there was a long spell…

  • The Green Ray

    The Green Ray

    ★★★★★

    (photo essay available here)

    On my first day in Portland, I saw The Green Ray.

    It’s a strange way to start a vacation, but my travels were strange from the outset. I was to be sent away for 9 days in the Pacific Northwest for 3 days at a conference. It was to be my first time traveling alone, my first time in that part of the world, my first time playing the part of a professional – and I…

Recent reviews

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  • Reality

    Reality

    ★★★½

    Admirable but thin, especially when its increasing formal insistence distracts from the brutal efficacy of its (fundamentally strong) script. Choosing to present the interrogation in "real time" allows for the banality of the scenario to come to life, painfully awkward niceties the scalpel used to cut Reality's testimony to shreds. Ultimately, though, the movie becomes less about the lurching awkwardness of an agency designed to enforce the law (and observing the humans that make that possible) and more about Reality…

  • Godzilla Minus One

    Godzilla Minus One

    ★★

    While it's admirable just how interested this movie is in the sanctity of human life, the fundamental lifelessness of this all makes the whole endeavor pointless. Godzilla Minus One's script is as formulaic as can be, its production shockingly lifeless. Its one and only commitment is to its setting, a post-WW2 Japan, can't make up for how little it actually explores that setting. This is because Godzilla Minus One is exactly that, a spiritually forgivable but fundamentally lesser rendition of…

Popular reviews

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  • Sound of Metal

    Sound of Metal

    ★★½

    This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

    This review is a critical look at Sound of Metal's exclusionary stance towards cochlear implants, and the ways in which it personally demeans me as a hard of hearing individual with the procedure. Sound of Metal is a worthwhile film that takes a staunchly traditionalist perspective on deafness, and while I would ultimately recommend it for the mere fact that it is one of the few fictional features that attempts to depict a "deaf perspective," that it comes at the…

  • Ritual

    Ritual

    ★★★★½

    There was a time in my life where I longed to die.

    Wake up, go to class, go to work, go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. The tedium, the monotony, a mask to help me confront the crushing loneliness I felt at the time. Wake up, go to class, go to work, go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. I wanted to heal the hole in my heart, but no matter how often I reached out, I only seemed to be…