Pretty decent movie with a few amazing parts: Newman’s wonderful score (got a YouTube vid of Julien’s Suite on repeat), the occasionally gorgeous Lachman shots, especially that sweeping desert ultra wide at the end, the tennis court scene + Julien’s illness scene, both anchored by RDJ, this film’s primary and luckiest strength, in one of his greatest performances. He’s about the most beautiful boy in any movie I’ve ever seen here. Anyway, book better, but this mostly-successfully sanitizes and once-in-a-while amplifies the text in surprising and welcome ways.
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Barbie 2023
Watched with Director’s Commentary and liked it so much more. Nothing constructive to say about this, but I just enjoy it a lot and think it’s spectacularly well done.
Saw someone recently sleeping on the wall of a Chicago subway station, wearing Gosling’s “I Am Kenough” hoodie, with a slice of Giordano’s on their lap.
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The Adventures of Tintin 2011
I think these books influenced my tastes and interests in storytelling a lot more than I give them credit for. The adventure, the convolution and the giant scope always appealed to me as a kid, and they still do now, and even though this film outwardly seems to have all that, I’ve never found it terribly satisfying. Every time I come back, I’m expecting to find something new and I never do. Rarely do I feel this way about a film,…
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American Fiction 2023
This has Woody Allen written all over it and for my measure it’s probably better than any film he’s made in 15+ years. So many great moments but, man, the final one is great. Easy but earned, and the slam dunk the film deserves.
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Beau Is Afraid 2023
Think this is an absolute masterpiece and one that finally has me on board the Ari-train. Still, ending your (mostly analog) odyssey like this with a CG set piece is something I struggle with. But, eh… small potatoes.
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The Boy and the Heron 2023
Still making sense of all this on second watch, but god damn, this is good. Such a layered work (his most?) and dense beyond anything he’s attempted but I think he pulls it off. Watching it again I feel like I could actually relax for the film; it just demands to be seen again and I felt anxious to do so the entire first time I was watching it. I’ll be most interested to see how this is looked back…
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Getting Straight 1970
Gould and Bergen are absolute knockouts here, complicated and mercurial and real. Some of this feels a bit self-satisfied — much of the literary musing is textbook and the film doesn’t seem to realize, until the very end, which I suppose negates my point, but still — but it’s just so compelling made that it’s hard to fault little things.
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Mighty Aphrodite 1995
One of Woody’s most endearing attributes is his very wide breadth of knowledge about many topics that he seems only to know about just beyond the surface level.
Sorvino is surprising stilted in this, although her performance becomes a bit stronger as the film progresses (or maybe you just get more attuned to what she is attempting). It sometimes feels like she’s waiting for her next line rather than actually reacting to what’s going on, but she’s charming enough that you really just don’t care.
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