‎Aaron White’s profile • Letterboxd

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The First Slam Dunk 2022

★★★★½ Watched 24 Jul 2023 5

I will once again be begging The Academy to nominate an anime film this year. THE FIRST SLAM DUNK is gorgeously animated to show the physicality and speed of the game of basketball and also strongly capture human emotion with its mixture of hand-drawn and CGI styles. It's brilliantly structured, taking place over the course of a single HS playoff game, with a deeply moving core story about overcoming grief and chasing dreams mixed with exhilarating detailed on-court action. It is in fact, well, a slam dunk.
Sports Film Hall of Fame
Click here to listen to my spoiler-free review on Feelin' Film Podcast
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 2023

★★★★★ Watched 31 May 2023

Quite possibly the best animation in film ever - an artful masterpiece of strikingly different but equally gorgeous styles to represent the various worlds inhabited by the many creative and unique characters in the Spider-verse. A deeply emotional, layered, epic, awesome, and heavy story plays out that challenges relationships and builds toward some terrifying stakes as the narrative forces the idea of whether or not one should change fate onto the dual protagonists of Miles and Gwen. This is the…

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Maestro 2023

★★★★ Watched 30 Nov 2023

Cooper really has it as a director and proves that A STAR IS BORN was no fluke. I was mesmerized by the presentation and swept up in the complicated relationship between Bernstein and his devoted wife Felicia, though I never cared for either of them and felt at an arms length because we only get to know them as defined by this one thing. The film is almost entirely interested in the famous conductor/composer's prolific affairs and obsession with men,…
The Iron Claw 2023

Watched 30 Nov 2023

Sean Durkin and a phenomenal cast deliver a melodramatic sports biopic that flips the typical genre beats with this powerful, profound story of a family pushing for greatness at a terrible cost. Tremendous filmmaking, tragic story.

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Thor: Love and Thunder 2022

★★ Watched 29 Jun 2022 52

When everything is a joke, is anything actually funny? The first half is overly ridiculous and toothless even for Waititi. The CGI is often awful. The second half makes actual attempts at emotion, but it feels soooooo forced at this point and barely works. Luckily a terrifying Christian Bale as Gorr is at least something worth paying attention to for the performance even if they completely waste a badass villain concept by rushing through it. I LOVE where it ended…
The Batman 2022

★★★★ Watched 24 Feb 2022 12

Dark, gritty, and moody, this is a bleak story that provides the Dark Knight an opportunity to showcase his great detective skills more so than maybe ever before. The action is exciting, too, and feels like the fight choreographers must have played the excellent series of Arkham games. Cinematography, score, and Zoe Kravitz are all aces, while Pattinson shines as the Bat and mostly bores as endlessly depressed Bruce. Serkis as Alfred is fine, but forgettable, and Dano as The…