Quite obviously Paul W.S. Anderson’s riff on Inception (which came out two years earlier). The snow armies in both films look the same. Kevin Durand’s death scene has a shameless Zimmer rip-off queue. Both feature multi “level” narratives with parent/child bonds at their core. Everything about it feels like a guy who saw Inception 12 months earlier and became obsessed. Only, instead of being a dream movie that looks like a video game, it’s a video game movie that feels…
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From the Life of the Marionettes 1980
As usual, Nykvist and Bergman make magic with their blocking, lighting and framing. It is so intriguing to see Bergman operating in such a modern, almost proto-futurist space. Wish we got more. This must be the only Bergman that features a highway. That architecture is stunning through Bergman’s eye. It almost borders on a sci-fi aesthetic at times. The film’s strongest element (other than acting, perhaps) is how well, and subtly, it depicts urban oppression. How the true source of…
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Cha Cha Real Smooth 2022
This dude has more in common with Tommy Wiseau than he thinks. Unless this is actually a satire, truly terrible. A thinly disguised admission that Cooper Raiff wants to have sex with his mom and hates his step dad for getting to. As if the writing and acting weren’t bad enough, the film is negligently directed also. Constantly cutting from one uninspired composition to another. There’s almost too many things to dislike. Cha Cha Real Smooth is wish fulfillment fan…
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The Fabelmans 2022
A fascinating film that demonstrates cinema’s capacity to manipulate. Though movies also get at truth through this manipulation. Artifice doesn’t mean everything is fake.
The Fabelmans shows the tools filmmakers use to interpolate reality and create fiction. The artificiality of movies is right there when young Sammy makes his war picture – we see his extras running behind the camera to reposition further into the shot, creating the illusion of more bodies than there are. Simple tricks to elicit a…