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After Yang 2021
Sundance 2022: Feature #3
“I’m fine if there’s nothing in the end.”
After Yang is a gentle conversation about grief and rediscovery.
Much like Columbus, this is a film that is sure of itself: it takes its time. Breathes. You nestle into the tree’s shadow raking against the way. You take in the sound of the rain gently falling outside. You notice all mirrors there are and what’s in their reflection.
As the film kept progressing, I was expecting the…
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The Silence of the Lambs 1991
What can I even add? I'll just say how exciting it was to watch this movie roll deep on Oscar night—a truly great night in the history of the awards—and yet how startling it remains that it wasn't nominated for twice as much. The cinematography? The score? The production design, with that crazy medieval dungeon/asylum? The sound design, as if anyone has ever forgotten the sound of that meal tray being shoved back and forth in Lecter's cell, or the…
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Three Colors: Red 1994
I'm sure it's been one of the defining questions since the dawn of consciousness, but on my end, I can only attest that countless long hours on crowded public transportation will definitely get you obsessing about the intersection between random people's lives. How often complete strangers truly affect the overarching trajectory of others and how much could possibly be premeditated? Naturally, the guy that did 10+ movies on the nuances of religious text applied to modern reality isn't exactly intending to conclusively answer any of it, but damn if he can't explore hefty philosophical interrogations through captivating, subdued fiction like nobody.
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The Batman 2022
Excessivamente longo, com excesso de personagens, o filme teria se aproveitado de um roteiro mais coeso e apurado. Pattinson, que é bom ator, só convence de máscara. Colin Farrell irreconhecível, excelente emulando Robert de Niro.
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Batman Returns 1992
I appreciate Batman Returns for its commitment to campiness. Some scattered thoughts about the main characters.
-Batman (Michael Keaton): As long as he’s not making that puckered lips Blue Steel face while sipping liqueur by the fire, he’s fine. Everybody knows Batman is the most boring part of Batman, so…moving on.
-Penguin (Danny Devito): Watching this for the first time in eons, I initially found Devito’s Penguin pretty annoying. As the film went on, though, his commitment to the bit…
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Lars and the Real Girl 2007
An ode to the little delusions we all need to make it through the day, and the difficulty of putting them to rest. I loved it.
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The Batman 2022
Gah! This was such a 4 1/2 star film, if it just had thirty minutes trimmed off. There were so many impressive elements, but some of these talented 2010s directors just can not. f*cking. help. themselves. They’d have to change the title of some classic films if they had these unnecessarily bloated runtimes.
-A Star is Born, Becomes a Lounge Singer, Goes Through Menopause, Becomes a Docent at the MOMA, Slips Into Dementia, and Dies
-Back to the Future, But I… -
The Worst Person in the World 2021
"I wasted so much time worrying about what could go wrong.
But what did go wrong was never the things I worried about."One of those films that captures the essence of what is life and reminds us how complex being alive can be.
Painfully relatable and beautifully executed in all its sensibility, force and reality. Will probably echo for a long time in my mind. That's all I can say right now. -
Distant Voices, Still Lives 1988
This film floored me. A narrative that seems to swirl and float like Davies’ camera, through the unmoored memories of a family’s life. A loving mother, two loving daughters, and a loving son, all at the mercy of a merciless father. The melancholy that permeates even the best of times. All this strength and sadness underscored and elevated by the songs the family sings together in the pub.
The only other Terence Davies film I’ve seen is The Long Day…
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Scream 2022
I enjoyed this re/quel more than the other Scream sequels and felt that the characters’ lives were really at stake here. The film is a bit more gory than the rest, but it still kept that sense of campy fun. There are some great kills and the references to other horror movies has always been a highlight of the franchise. I enjoyed Scream and was brought back to the original film which served me as an introduction to horror films,…
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Flee 2021
Aesthetic choices aren't necessarily tied to a specific purpose, but it's also not like their execution are immune to criticism when they are. The animation opened a world of possibilities less tied to budget restrictions, personal exposure and even geopolitical tensions, so it's a tad frustrating to see the movie recreate competent, yet commonplace live-action-like découpage, when it's structured around a testimony with remarkable subjectivity. The sequences in which the standard style is replaced by a bunch of scratches erratically forming half-repressed visions of the past are great.
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