I hope this encourages more studios to make more original mid-budget genre movies, and for more audiences to take more chances on those movies… and this is certainly arrestingly original visually… but this script is boring as fuck.
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The Unbelievable Truth 1989
Definitely a debut feature, and more so what I was expecting when I decided to watch Henry Fool; talky, theatre-y, slice of life, less visual storytelling. I think more than anything, though, I just didn’t want to spend as much time with these people. You can see the Jean Luc Godard influence here, mainly with the title cards, but it’s what gives this thing that extra aesthetic awareness.
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Party Girl 1995
The first 20 or so minutes were 5 stars and then it develops a plot (lame). Parker Posey is the definition of a girl I’d be too terrified to talk to.
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Ponyo 2008
Fuck it, I’m bumping this up to the full 5 stars. Not only is it Miyazaki’s most breathtakingly beautiful movie (not an easy feat to accomplish—let alone so decisively!) but his 5-year-old protagonists here make this his gentlest and his sweetest too. It also shares the deeply endearing smaller scale and emotional arc of his other younger-audience masterpiece, My Neighbor Totoro, understanding the massive power that little fears and tiny discoveries have when you see them through a child’s eyes,…
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Henry Fool 1997
This is my first Hal Hartley feature and I was completely blown away by his fearlessness as a writer-director. As someone who wasn’t familiar with his work before and hadn’t even seen so much as a still image from any of his previous movies, the first 30 minutes felt like being struck by lightning. In a world where genreless Sundance movies now carry with them the expectation of safe, dialogue-heavy, naturalistic-to-arch tones, the style and tone of Henry Fool felt, by…
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The First Wives Club 1996
I don’t know what it is, but there is just something about media for middle-aged women that just speaks to my soul at such a visceral, molecular level.
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar 2023
Now when I say “give me some sugar” this will be what I mean.
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The Color of Money 1986
What Martin Scorsese, Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, John Turturro, Forest Whitaker, and Iggy Pop all have in common. Mid-80s Scorsese hits.
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Accomplice 2010
The best kind of “fuck it let’s just make something with our friends” type bullshit.